Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

COVENT GARDEN MARKET BILL (By Order)

MANCHESTER CORPORATION BILL (By Order)

Second Reading deferred till Tuesday next.

Oral Answers to Questions — OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT

Economists and Statisticians (Recruitment)

Mr. Dudley Smith: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what progress she has made in the recruitment of the 30 economists needed for the proposed expansion of her Department's activities; and if she will make a statement.

Mr. Dalyell: asked the Minister of Overseas Development whether she is satisfied that the recruitment of economists and statisticians to the staff of her Ministry is designed to ensure that the best possible use is made of British aid to the developing countries; and if she will make a statement.

Mr. William Hamilton: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what is her estimated requirement of economists in her Department; and what steps she is taking to secure them.

Mr. Park: asked the Minister of Overseas Development how many economists she estimates will be needed for the necessary expansion of her Department's activities; and what progress has been made in their recruitment.

Mr. Chapman: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what progress she has made in recruitment of economists for expansion of her staff; and whether she proposes to have economists who will assist underdeveloped Commonwealth countries in drawing up their development plans and in formulating aid projects.

The Minister of Overseas Development (Mrs. Barbara Castle): Recruitment of economists and statisticians to my staff should certainly assist in ensuring that the best use is made of British aid to developing countries. We shall also be better able to meet requests from overseas countries to advise on development plans and projects. One part-time and four full-time economists have so far been recruited and arrangements to recruit a further 10 economists are proceeding. All will have had considerable experience of development work though it is proposed to recruit some less experienced people as well for training.

Mr. Dudley Smith: Can the right hon. Lady say whether she plans to make use of these economists by sending them abroad to study conditions in the field and to initiate surveys? Would she not agree that they would be largely wasted if they were left at home in the Ministry?

Mrs. Castle: I would not agree with the last part of that supplementary question. We have found that there is a great deal to be done inside the Ministry in evaluating development plans put to us by different countries, and in many other aspects of our work. It may be that from time to time they will go into the field to give advice on the spot.

Mr. Dalyell: Will my right hon. Friend name the four full-time and the one part-time economists?

Mrs. Castle: Yes, Sir. Part of the answer was given in reply to a Question asked by the hon. Member for Surbiton (Mr. Fisher). Three of the gentlemen are the Director General of Economic Planning, Mr. Dudley Seers, his Deputy, Mr. Paul Streeten and the head of the World Economy Division, Mr. Robin Marris. Mr. R. S. Porter is to be head of the Geographical Division, and Miss P. Adie is doing part-time research work.

Mr. Chapman: Would my right hon. Friend accept the congratulations of many of us on this side of the House that she has made this wonderful beginning on this job? In view of the importance in small areas of the Commonwealth, like the West Indies, of the actual job of drawing up development plans which will attract trade from both this country and international agencies, would my right hon. Friend make it clear that she hopes eventually to send some of these economists out there to help them draw up their plans?

Mrs. Castle: I can certainly give the assurance for which my hon. Friend asks. I hope in due course to strengthen our overseas representation in the field for that purpose as well.

Mr. Fisher: As these are additional economists, from outside the Civil Service, and as I understand from her Answer that some more have been added since my Question to which the right hon. Lady referred, may I ask whether she can tell the House the additional cost of these gentlemen's salaries to the taxpayer over arid above the normal Civil Service costs?

Mrs. Castle: Details of the salaries of those already appointed were given in the Answer on 9th February. It is impossible for me to give to the hon. Gentleman the total, for the reason that the salaries of the remainder will obviously vary with their qualifications and experience.

Mr. R. Carr: On an organisational point, will all these economists be integrated within the geographical department within the right hon. Lady's Ministry, or will they have a separate functional set-up of their own?

Mrs. Castle: It is proposed that the planning units shall have three divisions. In the Geographical Division the economists concerned will work with the operational staff of the Ministry in drawing up plans for different areas of the world and the countries within them. There will also be a World Economy Division and a Statistical Division which w ill be an amplification of the one which existed under the old Department of Technical Co-operation.

Kenya (Land Resettlement)

Mr. Longden: asked the Minister of Overseas Development how many more

European farms in Kenya have been resettled by African families since the end of June, 1964; what is the average amount of compensation per acre; and how many more farms now remain to be resettled under the Million Acre Scheme.

Mrs. Castle: About 60 European farms have been resettled under the Million Acre Scheme since 1st July, 1964. Purchase of farms under this scheme is on a willing buyer-willing seller basis and no compensation is involved; the average amount paid was about £9 per acre. About 50 farms remain to be bought out under the scheme.

Mr. Longden: I thank the right hon. Lady for that reply, but can she give us some further information about the remaining small mixed farms, about 1,200, 1 think, which were not included in the Million Acre Scheme, about the remaining compassionate cases, 160 of these, I think, and about the remaining Settlement Board farmers, about 200, I think?

Mrs. Castle: I am not quite sure what the hon. Gentleman is referring to in the first part of his supplementary question. There are about 100 small mixed farms involved in the O1 Kalou scheme, the application in respect of which was made only recently. I have already announced that we are prepared to make an appropriate sum available for the purchase of farms in future on a compassionate basis, but, as those cases will have to be considered on their merits, it is not possible yet to say how many will be involved.

Mr. Wall: Is it not a fact that although the Million Acre Scheme has a year or more to run, the money has actually been expended and there will be no more purchases after January of this year unless the right hon. Lady introduces the second phase of the scheme and finances it?

Mrs. Castle: It is not true that the total United Kingdom commitment of £16½ million for the Million Acre Scheme has all been spent. There remain to be purchased about 50 farms under that scheme. The future scheme to which the hon. Gentleman refers is, as he knows, still under consideration.

Mr. Wall: asked the Minister of Overseas Development when the commission on land resettlement will return


from Kenya; and when its report is expected.

Mr. Fisher: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what has been the outcome of her review of the extension of the Million Acre Kenya Settlement Scheme.

Mrs. Castle: The mission is returning from Kenya at the end of this week. I will review the position in the light of its Report, which I expect to receive towards the end of April.

Mr. Wall: Will the right hon. Lady bear in mind the vital importance of speed in this matter? What is at stake is not only the European farming community in Kenya but the stability of the economy. Is the Report likely to be published?

Mrs. Castle: The answer to the last part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question is, no. This Report will be confidential. I am fully aware of the need for speed and I have urged the mission, which is returning at the end of this week, to let me have the Report as soon as possible, but I understand that it has collected so much information that it will take a little time to process it all. We would all wish it to give very careful consideration to all the evidence it has acquired.

Mr. Fisher: Would the right hon. Lady agree, in principle at any rate, that the original scheme initiated by my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys) satisfied a need both of European farmers and landless Africans and that extension of it is now desirable, if she can do it and it is recommended in the Report? If she decides on an extension, are there enough officers, both European and African, available in Kenya to advance this aid effectively and to organise properly the settlement of Africans on the farms?

Mrs. Castle: I appreciate the valuable role played by the Million Acre Scheme, and it was because there was clearly a problem remaining that I decided to send out the mission. The detailed point to which the hon. Gentleman referred is one which, I hope, will be covered by the Report.

Mr. Turton: Is the right hon. Lady also aware that there are other problems, including that of a number of farms which are now abandoned and could be

worked if done on a common ranching system with help either by the World dank or her Ministry? Will she add that to one of the solutions which, we hope, she will announce when the mission has reported?

Mrs. Castle: I would rather await the Report and see how far it covers the whole problem in Kenya before making any further commitment.

Road Development (Technological Assistance)

Mr. Gresham Cooke: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what steps she is taking to ensure that the maximum amount of technological assistance from British sources is given in connection with potential road development in under-developed territories.

Mrs. Castle: I agree with the hon. Member's implication that technological assistance from Britain is important to road development in underdeveloped countries, and my Department continually seeks ways of increasing the already considerable flow of this assistance.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: Will the right hon. Lady bear in mind not only that a road opens up the country and brings trade but, very often, British consultants and British machinery can follow in the wake of it? Also, in the light of all the promises in the Labour Party manifesto, will the right hon. Lady say how much more is to be done this year?

Mrs. Castle: I agree that roads open up a developing country, and assistance in this respect forms an important part of our technical assistance programmes. We shall continue to pursue them.

Mr. Snow: Is my right hon. Friend prepared to encourage assistance from manufacturers in this country, for instance, motor car manufacturers, who might contribute towards the road development programme?

Mrs. Castle: All contributions from those sources would be very welcome.

India (Aid)

Mrs. Shirley Williams: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what technical assistance and other forms of


aid Her Majesty's Government will make available for the fourth Five Year Plan of the Government of India; and, in particular, if she will consider helping the training of industrial designers.

Mrs. Castle: Decisions on the level and form of British aid for the fourth Five Year Plan must await discussions with the Indian Government when they have taken their decisions on the shape and size of the Plan, which is to cover the years 1966–71.
We shall certainly consider any request for assistance in training industrial designers.

Mrs. Williams: Is my right hon. Friend aware of how much excitement has been caused by the establishment and work of her Ministry in the under-developed countries. Second, will she ensure that we co-operate at every level, including the original design level and the provision of machinery when we create new capital projects in these countries?

Mrs. Castle: I agree entirely that an important part of our aid consists in the training of experts in the recipient country itself, and I shall always do my best to meet any requests from the Government of India that Indian engineers and others should participate in preparing designs and specifications for future projects.

Mr. Tilney: Is the right hon. Lady aware of the bottleneck in technical education aid teacher training in India and does she realise that help in this matter, particularly over audio-visual aids, would be very much appreciated? Could British industry in both the public and the private sector help in the training of instructors and supervisors?

Mrs. Castle: The answer to both those questions is, Yes, Sir.

Ceylon (Aid)

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: asked the Minister of Overseas Development how much technical assistance has been given to the Government of Ceylon subsequent to the recent disasters on the island.

Mrs. Castle: No technical assistance specifically related to the damage caused by the cyclone has been given.

Mr. Lewis: With her enthusiasm for technical aid, will the right hon. Lady

consider giving help in this particular case because it is one where technical aid is much better than money, and will she bear in mind also that there is great scope for the use of overseas service in Ceylon and try to encourage this?

Mrs. Castle: We give technical assistance only at the request of Governments, and we have not received any request for special technical assistance for this purpose from the Government of Ceylon.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what aid has been given to the Government of Ceylon since January, 1964.

Mrs. Castle: The Government of Ceylon has made drawings amounting to approximately £600,000 against the 1961 loan for telecommunications equipment and has also received technical assistance to the value of £114,000. The provision of emergency aid worth £26,000 to victims of the cyclone that struck the island in December was announced in the House on 19th January by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations.

Mr. Lewis: What does the right hon. Lady expect for the coming year? Will she bear in mind in fixing aid for Ceylon that good relations between this country and Ceylon are very desirable, but that it is to be hoped that the Government of Ceylon will bear in mind that its relationships with this country and its interests in Ceylon should also be on a friendly footing?

Mrs. Castle: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations has made it clear on more than one occasion that he has brought this fact to the attention of the Government of Ceylon, but, as it happens, no new programmes of assistance are in prospect.

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: Will the right hon. Lady undertake that when she next discusses aid to Ceylon she will take the opportunity of pointing out the hardship being experienced by those who have given their working lives and capital to help Ceylon and who are now entirely dependent on income from Ceylon for a pension or a livelihood?

Mrs. Castle: I have already covered that in my previous answer. In any


case, as I have said, no new programmes of assistance are in prospect, so the question does not arise.

Mr. John Wells: In the coming year, will the right hon. Lady consider in particular the difficulties of the hill school at Nuwara Eliya?

Mrs. Castle: I will certainly look into that.

Voluntary Service Overseas

Mr. Charles Morrison: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what progress has been made in her plans to increase the opportunities for overseas voluntary service.

Mr. Hamling: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what progress has been made in her plans to aid underdeveloped countries and stimulate the natural instinct of young people in this country towards public service by increasing the opportunities for voluntary service overseas.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Overseas Development (Mr. Albert E. Oram): The target which the voluntary bodies have agreed to aim at this year is 1,600 volunteers, 1,200 of them graduate or qualified volunteers and 400 school leavers—cadets. This represents an increase of 735 over the figure for last year. The voluntary bodies are hard at work selecting volunteers and the final figures will not be known for some months.

Mr. Morrison: Are the Government to give more financial assistance to Voluntary Service Overseas? Second, by how many does the hon. Gentleman think the numbers will increase next year?

Mr. Oram: As regards the second part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question, I think that we ought to take it year by year and see how we go in this forthcoming year. As regards financial assistance, the present year's programme is subsidised to the extent of 50 per cent. from Government funds, and for next year's programme this has been stepped up to 75 per cent.

Mr. Hamling: Is my hon. Friend aware that the Answer he has just given is received with great satisfaction on these benches, and we are particularly gratified

to learn what a speedy increase has been made in the past three or four months? It is a remarkable achievement.

Mr. Oram: I thank my hon. Friend for what he says and I take it as a credit to the Department, but it should be noted that these efforts are not just Government efforts but are the efforts of the voluntary societies, particularly V.S.O. We are very grateful for all they are doing.

Mr. R. Carr: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that the main reason why we have this large and gratifying increase in the numbers going out is that our plans for this year were announced and the financial arrangements were made 12 months ago? We then set a target of 1,300, which, I am glad to see, it has been possible to increase to 1,600. Will the hon. Gentleman give most careful consideration to announcing now the targets for September of next year, bearing in mind that, if the plans had not been made a year ago, we should not have had this increase, and we shall not have a similar increase next year if nothing is done well in advance?

Mr. Oram: No one wishes to belittle what the right hon. Gentleman did during his term of office, but I hope that he will not belittle what my right hon. Friend, in the early days of her office, has been able to do in bringing about this substantial and important increase. I shall certainly bear in mind what the right hon. Gentleman suggests about advance announcement of future plans.

India and Pakistan (Family Planning)

Mr. Kershaw: asked the Minister of Overseas Development why she discussed family planning with the Governments of India and Pakistan.

Mrs. Renée Short: asked Minister of Overseas Development if she will make a statement on her discussions on family planning during her recent visit to India and Pakistan.

Mrs. Castle: Both Governments have adopted family planning as an essential part of their development planning and attach great importance to it. I obtained useful information from them on their plans and informed them of our willingness to help and to examine sympathetically any requests they might put to us for technical assistance in this field.

Mr. Kershaw: How much will it cost? Will some aid be conditional upon this system being adopted by these countries?

Mrs. Castle: No, I would certainly not make it a condition of aid. We have made our position quite clear. It is that we stand ready to give technical assistance in this field at the request of Governments but that we feel that this is something in which they should have freedom of choice. It is impossible to say what the cost will be.

Mr. Blenkinsop: Does my right hon. Friend realise that many of us welcome very much the interest that the Government of India are showing in this matter? Will she use her good offices to try to persuade the World Health Organisation also to take a more active interest?

Mrs. Castle: I was very much struck by the concern of the Indian Government with this problem and with the steps they are taking to deal with it. I will certainly give consideration to what my hon. Friend said about the W.H.O.

Mr. Tilney: Is the right hon. Lady aware that the Indian population is increasing at the rate of over 1 million a month and that anything she can do to help solve this problem, particularly by the provision of mobile clinics in States like Mahratta, will be very much appreciated?

Mrs. Castle: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the support he is giving us in this matter. The provision of mobile clinics is one of the forms of technical assistance that we will bear in mind.

Central Africa Conference, 1963

Mr. Turton: asked the Minister of Overseas Development whether Her Majesty's Government intend to honour the undertakings given by their predecessors in Chapter IV of the Report of the Central Africa Conference 1963, Cmnd. 2093.

Mrs. Castle: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Turton: As the talks were discontinued on the formation of the right hon. Lady's Ministry and the arrival of the present Government in office, will she ask the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations and the Lord Chancellor,

who are at present in Rhodesia, to make it clear that they will be happy to continue these talks about aid?

Mrs. Castle: As it happens, exploratory financial talks with officials of the Government of Rhodesia began in London today.

Voluntary Overseas Organisation

Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: asked the Minister of Overseas Development to what extent the receipt of Government subsidy has obliged the Voluntary Overseas Organisation to change its objects and methods.

Mr. Oram: Not at all, so far as I am aware. I certainly would not wish to alter the essentially voluntary basis of the scheme, which I believe greatly appeals to countries receiving volunteers from Britain.

Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: Has not some of the enthusiasm been dissipated owing to the fact that the original founders have felt obliged to resign because they consider that the movement has become bureaucratised, that the service is being absorbed into the civil administration of the British Council and that the difficult tasks in difficult countries are now disapproved of and frowned upon by the Government?

Mr. Oram: The figures I gave in reply to an earlier Question show that enthusiasm has not by any means abated. The organisation rightly accepted the services of the British Council and I do not think that any of the difficulties to which the hon. and learned Gentleman has referred are really arising.

Sir Knox Cunningham: On a slightly different aspect-will the hon. Gentleman agree that Voluntary Service Overseas is of great value to those giving this service as well as to those at the receiving end?

Mr. Oram: That is certainly true. This is a two-way benefit—to the developing countries themselves and to those who go out there to help and thereby gain useful experience. The hon. Gentleman used the familiar phrase "Voluntary Service Overseas". I point out that that is the name of only one of four organisations all engaged in this valuable work.

Mr. Dalyell: Will my hon. Friend confirm that the enthusiasm of founders such as Alan Dickson remains untarnished?

Mr. Oram: I expect to see Mr. Dickson quite soon. He will get an enthusiastic reception from me and I expect him to reciprocate.

United Nations Technical Assistance and Special Fund

Mr. Francis Noel-Baker: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what communication she has received from the United Nations in respect of the United Kingdom contribution to the United Nations Expanded Programme of Technical Assistance and the Special Fund for the year 1965.

Mrs. Castle: As I said in reply to a Question by my hon. Friend on 9th February, the British contribution for 1965 will be $1·75 million more than the contribution in 1964. Both Mr. Owen, the Executive Chairman of the Technical Assistance Board, and Mr. Hoffman, the Managing Director of the Special Fund, have publicly expressed their appreciation of the increase.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Is my right hon. Friend aware that we on these benches are gratified that the Government, despite the economic situation inherited from their predecessors, have been able to make this substantial increase, which will be of great encouragement to other Governments, in spite of the fact that the United States has not yet been able to make a pledge?

Mrs. Castle: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. It was our intention by this step to reaffirm our belief in the work of the United Nations in this direction.

Mr. R. Carr: The right hon. Lady should know how much we on this side of the House welcome the increase. Is she aware that she is, in fact, honouring a pledge given by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexley (Mr. Heath) last year at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development?

Mrs. Castle: The right hon. Member for Bexley gave a pledge but did not quantify it. We have agreed to make a specific increase of 17½ per cent. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman would

have done as much had he remained in office.

Mr. R. Carr: Is the right hon. Lady aware that our previous increase in the year before that was 25 per cent.?

Mrs. Castle: The right hon. Gentleman is quite wrong.

Mr. R. Carr: It was two years ago.

Mrs. Castle: No increase was made by the Conservative Government last year.

Pakistan (Aid)

Mr. Pavitt: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what are the main forms of aid to Pakistan; and what changes she has proposed as a result of her recent visit.

Mrs. Castle: We give Pakistan both technical and capital assistance. During my visit I discussed with the Pakistan authorities their needs for technical assistance which are becoming increasingly sophisticated. These discussions will greatly help me in ensuring the availability in Britain of the facilities needed. I was also asked about the possibility of our providing more consultancy services and I am pursuing this.
At Pakistan's request, our capital aid has mainly taken the form of "general purpose" loans, that is to say loans to enable Pakistan to meet her general developmental needs from Britain. The detailed discussions I had on their needs will be of great value to me in considering with them our future capital aid programme.

Mr. Pavitt: Would my right hon. Friend bear in mind that although the needs are more sophisticated, the major needs in Pakistan still remain rural and village development schemes? Will she give special assistance to the co-operatives, which had their home in the Punjab between the wars, in order to ensure that when the Pakistan Government finishes its third five-year plan, which is now in progress, that sector of the economy will receive a full measure of support from her technical assistance resources?

Mrs. Castle: I agree that agriculture is a very important part of Pakistan's problem. I made it quite clear that we


were ready to give any assistance in this respect which might be found valuable. Certain suggestions have been put to us which are being followed up. I will certainly bear in mind what my hon. Friend has said about co-operatives.

Mr. Wall: Will the right hon. Lady bear in mind that Pakistan is our treaty ally in C.E.N.T.O. and is becoming increasingly worried about the amount of military aid given to India and expects that aid to be matched in some degree?

Mrs. Castle: Questions of military aid are not for my Ministry.

United Nations Development Decade

Mr. Francis Noel-Baker: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what discussions she has had with voluntary organisations concerning more effective co-operation to ensure public support for the aims of the United Nations Development Decade.

Mr. Oram: I had a valuable discussion in January with a number of voluntary organisations. Proposals have been drawn up for greater co-operation between the various organisations concerned in this work and are now under discussion. I hope that they will be acceptable to all concerned.

Mr. Noel-Baker: When does my hon. Friend expect a decision to be reached and in what form will it be published? What assistance does he expect the Government to be able to give the voluntary agencies concerned with this work?

Mr. Oram: The working party which is examining this question will be meeting again this week. I should prefer to await the outcome of that meeting before answering my hon. Friend's first question. I should not like to enter into any commitment about support before the discussions are concluded, but we stand ready to be as helpful in this matter as we possibly can.

Commonwealth Medical Conference

Mr. Chapman: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what action she has taken to give effect to the recommendation of the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' meeting last year that a Commonwealth Medical Conference should be held.

Mrs. Castle: All Commonwealth Governments have agreed to this proposal and it is planned to hold the conference in Edinburgh from 4th to 13th October this year. The purpose of the conference will be to consider the existing methods and schemes of mutual co-operation between Commonwealth countries in the field of medicine and to make recommendations regarding the ways in which this co-operation can be strengthened and extended.

Mr. Chapman: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the satisfaction which will be shared by both sides of the House with this announcement, which is further evidence of the energy in her Ministry? Will unofficial medical bodies be able to take part in this most important Commonwealth conference?

Mrs. Castle: My hon. Friend is quite right. This is further evidence of the importance which we attach to Commonwealth co-operation in all these things. I think that we will have a very valuable conference. The unofficial bodies will be able to take Dart and we hope that the medical profession in Britain will be represented.

Mr. Stratton Mills: Having regard to the right hon. Lady's many duties, has she experienced the need for a Minister of State to assist her?

Mrs. Castle: The thoroughness with which we are now supervising the management of aid and the planning of aid means that we could do with additional help.

Mr. R. Carr: Is the right hon. Lady aware of how much pleasure it gives us on this side of the House to see her implementing our plans, including even that for the venue of the conference at Edinburgh?

Mrs. Castle: I am sorry that some of these plans which the right hon. Gentleman keeps mentioning were not brought into operation under his régime.

Overseas Development Service

Mr. Longbottom: asked the Minister of Overseas Development whether she will consider setting up an Overseas Development Service to assist in satisfying the demands for technical assistance made to her Department.

Mr. Oram: I am engaged in a thoroughgoing review of our recruitment for technical assistance overseas. It includes all practicable suggestions for more adequately satisfying the increasing demands made upon us.

Mr. Longbottom: Can the hon. Gentleman tell us when we can expect the results of this review? Is he aware that all technical assistance is now so specialised that we must try to attract to the service people who will devote a lifetime to work in the service of developing countries, because this is of maximum benefit? What can we expect to hear further about this?

Mr. Oram: I entirely accept what the hon. Gentleman says about the importance of this work. However, because of the complexity of the review, it is not possible to give a date on which it can be expected to be concluded.

Mr. Francis Noel-Baker: Can my hon. Friend say how easy or difficult he is finding it to fill these posts with suitable people? Is his Ministry now considering opening offices similar to the Middle East Development Commission in other parts of the world, notably Africa and South America?

Mr. Oram: It is not easy to give an overall answer, because it is easier in certain professions than in others. For instance, we are experiencing great difficulty with the medical profession. I have nothing to say at the moment about my hon. Friend's second question.

Mr. Longden: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not exclude from his review the needs of the countries of Latin America.

Mr. Oram: The review I mention was about recruitment, not the needs of overseas countries. We are separately making a review of the action needed in that respect and I can assure the hon. Gentleman that Latin America is not outside our consideration.

Departmental Staff (Overseas Posts)

Mr. Longbottom: asked the Minister of Overseas Development how many new overseas posts in British High Commissions and Embassies have now been created to be held by members of her Department.

Mrs. Castle: Overseas development posts in British High Commissions and Embassies are on the establishment of the Diplomatic Service, but arrangements exist for officers from my Department to be seconded to the Diplomatic Service to fill these posts. There are at present five such seconded officers. These are in addition, of course, to the much larger number of diplomatic service officers who are specially concerned with aid.

Mr. Longbottom: I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for that reply. However, during the coming year, does she anticipate being able to second more officers from her Department to these overseas posts? If not, will there be direct representation from these overseas posts to her or through the Foreign Office or Commonwealth Relations Office?

Mrs. Castle: I certainly hope during the coming months to increase the number of officers in my Department who will be seconded for this work at important receiving points in the developing countries. Even where these posts are filled as part of the Diplomatic Service, we are in close direct touch with those officers who are working full-time on matters concerned with aid.

Mr. Kershaw: Would it not be a graceful gesture by the right hon. Lady towards her former comrades on the Left-wing of the Labour Party, and would it not help the unity of the Labour Party, if she recommended some of her colleagues for these posts?

Mr. James Johnson: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind the appointment of educational attachés, particularly in Africa, where technical education has been so badly neglected?

Mrs. Castle: I do not think it would be right to appoint separate educational attaches, but the needs of education are certainly kept under review by the officers who are seconded by my Department.

Bilateral Aid

Mr. Alison: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what proportion of bilateral United Kingdom Government aid granted in the last two accounting years has been taken up and spent by the developing countries.

Mrs. Castle: It is not possible to say exactly what proportion of the commitments made in a given period lead to disbursements in th0at period. Commitments made in any one year may result in expenditures over several following years. In the calendar years 1962 and 1963, the latest for which figures are available, total disbursements amounted to 73 per cent. and 96 per cent. respectively of the total commitments made in those years.

Mr. Alison: I thank the right hon. Lady for that Answer. May I inquire whether the shortfall is due to a lack of goods and services for export from the United Kingdom or to the shortcomings of what might be described as the digestive system of the beneficiary countries? On the future, in the light of the recent announcement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer of public expenditure for the coming year and the pressure on resources which this is likely to generate, does the right hon. Lady expect that we shall be able to export the full amount of goods and services in aid without easing the pressure on home demand?

Mrs. Castle: As I said in my reply, there is not an exact relationship between the two figures which I gave. It is, therefore, impossible under our present statistical arrangements to estimate the shortfall. I am considering what improvements we can make in our financial statistics to enable us to have a clearer picture of the position.

Aid Programme (Review)

Mr. R. Carr: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what changes she proposes to make in the terms of Great Britain's financial aid to the developing countries.

Mrs. Castle: The review of our aid programme, including the terms of aid, is proceeding satisfactorily, though I cannot yet give a date for its completion. I shall certainly publish a White Paper on the work of the Department in due course.

Developing Countries (Aid)

Mr. R. Carr: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what criteria she adopts in establishing priorities between competing requests for aid by developing countries.

Mrs. Castle: So far as requests for aid constitute competing claims on our resources, the main criteria are the relative needs of the recipients and the prospects of the effective use of the aid.

Mr. Carr: Can the right hon. Lady indicate whether these criteria represent a change from the criteria applied by the previous Government, and, if they do, what effect she anticipates they will have on the distribution of aid between different countries? Secondly, can she say at what level consultation takes place between her Department and the overseas Departments in making these decisions?

Mrs. Castle: Owing to the division of responsibilities for overseas aid among so many different Departments under the previous Administration, it is very difficult to make out exactly what criteria were being followed. On the question of consultation with the overseas Departments, I keep in close touch with them in the application of our aid policies.

Mr. Tilney: Is the right hon. Lady aware of the important part played in the past by private enterprise investment and that the suggested Corporation Tax, affecting detrimentally double taxation agreements, may have a very detrimental effect on that investment?

Mrs. Castle: Those points arise on a later Question.

DEFENCE (CONSULTATION)

Mr. William Hamilton: asked the Prime Minister how many times he has met the Leader of the Opposition in the last two months to discuss defence matters; and what was the outcome of such discussions.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): The right hon. Gentleman and I are in touch about the possibilities of continuing consultation.

Mr. Hamilton: Is my right hon. Friend seized of the need for urgency in this matter? Does he agree that if the knowledge of the Leader of the Opposition on defence is as inadequate as his knowledge of economic matters there is not a moment to be lost?

The Prime Minister: There has been no suggestion of meetings of this kind about economic affairs. I am sure that the


right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition will agree that we had quite a constructive talk last week.

Sir A. V. Harvey: Will the Prime Minister bear in mind that in addition to Privy Councillors there are some backbench Members who would like to be informed on these matters? Will he think in broader terms and try to keep the House informed generally rather than a few select people on either side of it?

The Prime Minister: I am sure that the Defence White Paper published today will add greatly to the information on defence matters for all hon. Members, and that the defence debate, when it takes place, will go even further in that direction.

INDIA (MILITARY AND ECONOMIC AID)

Viscount Lambton: asked the Prime Minister whether he will give an assurance to the Government of India that in the event of that country being invaded by armed forces the British Government will give both military and economic aid independent of the action of the United Nations.

The Prime Minister: I would refer the hon. Gentleman to my answer to the Question put by the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Eldon Griffiths) on 4th February. Any action we should take in such circumstances would be in accordance with the principles of the United Nations Charter and would, we hope, be supported by the Organisation.

Viscount Lambton: Would the right hon. Gentleman be prepared to give an assurance that in certain circumstances we would be able to act before any sanction was given by the United Nations?

The Prime Minister: As far as our arrangements with Commonwealth countries are concerned, I think that we have always shown our readiness, ability and willingness to act on conditions which are fully consonant with the Charter of the United Nations.

Mr. Ennals: May I ask my right hon. Friend what commitment the previous Government made in this connection? Was it not my right hon. Friend himself

who put forward the proposal for military aid on a lend-lease basis at the time of Chinese aggression? Would he also confirm that it was the previous Government which delayed for 18 months in granting credits for frigates for India which she desperately needed?

The Prime Minister: A good part of the history outlined by my hon. Friend is undoubtedly true. But, as far as assurances and commitments are concerned, it has always been understood that this country stands ready to lend assistance to Commonwealth countries threatened from outside.

Sir Alec Douglas-Home: The Prime Minister will agree, I take it, that if we are thinking in these terms at all, we are the judges of what commitments we undertake at any time and that there is nothing like an automatic guarantee in his mind?

The Prime Minister: Certainly that is the position. But, as in the case of Malaysia, which is a separate question, we have shown that we felt it right to act in accordance with our undertakings to Malaysia.

Sir Alec Douglas-Home: Of course, we had a treaty with Malaysia.

MALAYSIA (MILITARY AND ECONOMIC AID)

Viscount Lambton: asked the Prime Minister whether he will give an assurance to the Government of the Federation of Malaysia that in the event of that country being invaded by armed forces the British Government will give both military and economic aid independent of the actions of the United Nations.

The Prime Minister: Under the Anglo-Malaysian Defence Agreement we have undertaken to afford Malaysia such assistance as she may require for the external defence of her territory. This undertaking is currently being honoured. No further assurance is called for.

Viscount Lambton: Will the Prime Minister say whether his statement "such weapons as she may require" includes all weapons under the command of the British Government?

The Prime Minister: The phrase which I used was, "such assistance as she may require". We are giving Malaysia all the assistance she has called for and requires in present circumstances.

Viscount Lambton: The right hon. Gentleman did not understand the trend of my supplementary question. Are we prepared to commit all weapons under British command to the defence of Malaysia?

The Prime Minister: Whether I understood the trend of the supplementary question or not, I answered it as it was put. I cannot at this stage discuss hypothetical circumstances. We shall give Malaysia whatever help is necessary to preserve her territorial integrity against aggression.

Mr. Sydney Silverman: Can my right hon. Friend say whether any progress has been made, or whether any progress which he can report has been made, in the attempt to mediate in this issue?

The Prime Minister: As I indicated last week, a lot of discussions are going on and it might not be helpful to go into too much detail about them at this time. The word "mediate" might easily be misunderstood. As I said last week, there is no question, as far as I can understand, of asking Malaysia to do anything. Malaysia has not been committing aggression. This is a straight question of infiltration into Malaysian territory by a country which, so far, does not recognise the existence of Malaysia and has gone to extreme lengths, such as resigning from the United Nations, because of that fact. This war—perhaps that is the wrong phrase—the fighting could stop immediately if Malaysia were recognised. Having said that, we are, of course, prepared to help in any way we can to bring the fighting to an end. A number of friendly countries in Asia have offered their services in this respect, but, as I said last week, we must not get into the position of ourselves negotiating on behalf of Malaysia, because Malaysia is an independent Commonwealth country. We must not give the impression that she is in any sense a colonial dependant of Britain.

WALES (AGRICULTURE)

Mr. Gower: asked the Prime Minister if he will bring agriculture in Wales within the executive authority of the Secretary of State for Wales.

The Prime Minister: I would refer the hon. Member to the Answer I gave to his Question on 16th February.

Mr. Gower: Is the Prime Minister aware that so far the new office of Secretary of State for Wales is more remarkable for the functions which have been excluded than for those which have been included? In particular, can he say why agriculture was not included in view of the fact that there are so many special difficulties and features of farming in parts of Wales which do not always obtain in other parts of the United Kingdom?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. My right hon. Friend and his colleagues are very much concerned with anything that can be done to help with the special problems of Wales. I am sure that when the hon. Member thinks this matter over, he will not feel that it would be right for us to cut off entirely from the Minister of Agriculture responsibility for agriculture in Wales and that we should not want to have three separate agricultural price reviews taking place.

Mr. Hooson: Will the Prime Minister bear in mind that there is a Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture stationed in Wales and that some of the Welsh agricultural civil servants come under him, whereas others seem to come directly under the Ministry in London? Would it not be far better to have them all under one Permanent Secretary who should be under the Secretary of State for Wales, as is the position in Scotland?

The Prime Minister: In answer to a Question by the hon. and learned Member some time ago, I said why it was felt by the Government, and, I think, by anyone who has studied the question, that the Scottish solution was not the right one in relation to Wales. As to agriculture, there are many services available to the Ministry of Agriculture which are extremely helpful in the Welsh situation and it would be a pity to cut them off and handle them separately.

COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS AND COLONIAL OFFICES

Mr. Fisher: asked the Prime Minister whether it is still his policy to merge the Commonwealth Relations and Colonial Offices next July.

The Prime Minister: It is our intention to merge these two Offices in due course. My right hon. Friends are already considering ways of integrating certain parts of their organisations which deal with similar work; but next July is too soon for a complete merger.

Mr. Fisher: Would the Prime Minister care to acknowledge that the delay in implementing this merger, which has been agreed for July and is clearly a sensible and desirable move, arises simply and solely from the fact that the right hon. Gentleman himself thought it expedient to appoint two Secretaries of State to do the work of one in the last Administration?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Member is entitled to his opinion; he will not expect others to share it. The former Secretary of State was recognised by the whole House as one of the most hard-working Ministers whom one could possibly have and yet there were times, as, I think, the House will agree, when, because of his necessary preoccupation with one country which he had to visit, other important questions, either from Colonial Territories or from Commonwealth countries, had to be postponed and deferred for quite a long time, with a result that was not very helpful. If one takes the present situation, I am sure that the House will agree that it is vitally important that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations should be this week in Rhodesia. It is equally important that the Colonial Secretary should be handling the preparations for the Aden situation, which are equally urgent.

Mr. Sandys: While not accepting the Prime Minister's criticisms, may I ask whether he is aware that with the shrinking responsibilities of the Colonial Office there is considerable feeling of uncertainty and anxiety among the officials and that it is, therefore, extremely important to clear up their future careers as quickly as possible?

The Prime Minister: I thought that my remarks about the right hon. Gentleman were anything but critical. We are, of course, working towards clearing up the situation. When my right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary was appointed, he was told that his job was to work himself out of a job, and that is what he is in process of doing. I am aware of certain uncertainties in this field, but, of course, the creation by the previous Government of a single Overseas Service is extremely valuable in this connection.

Mr. Chapman: Will my right hon. Friend make haste quite slowly in this matter? Is he aware that many of the smaller colonial dependencies are glad to have their own Ministry back again, because they have more direct access to immediate decisions by the Government? Will he, secondly, make haste slowly because many of us who concentrate on trying to help certain areas of the world are happy to have a Minister who is regularly in this country when his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations might well be abroad?

The Prime Minister: Without committing myself in detail to every word of my hon. Friend's advice, I would propose to make haste at what seems to be an appropriate speed.

AIRCRAFT WORKERS (EMPLOYMENT)

Mr. Farr: asked the Prime Minister the total number of aircraft workers and those of ancillary trades whose jobs are threatened by Her Majesty's Government's decision to cancel HS681; and what provision he is making to provide alternative employment in the Coventry and Lutterworth areas together with utilisation of the Bitteswell assembly establishment.

The Prime Minister: The workers whose jobs are most likely to be threatened by the cancellation of HS681 are those employed by Hawker Siddeley Aviation Limited. I understand that 1,500 of these were employed, directly or indirectly, on this project at the time of cancellation, and this total would have risen to about 4,500 by the end of this year had the project not been cancelled.
I understand that there is a high demand for labour in the areas round both factories and the prospects of placing any redundant workers in other jobs which will make use of their qualifications are, generally speaking, good.

Mr. Farr: Will the Prime Minister bear in mind that these are highly-skilled aircraft makers and that their employment in any other capacity would be largely wasted? Secondly, can the right hon. Gentleman recall his pre-election promise that he would continue to maintain British aircraft production and, moreover, would place Britain in the forefront of technological advance?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir, and that is what we are doing. It is not done by continuing with projects, which, owing to the time scale adopted by the previous Government and the delays, cannot be delivered by the time they are needed. As to these two factories, the hon. Member will be aware that no decision has been taken in respect of the second one mentioned by him and that since the debate in the House, some quite sizeable orders have been announced for the Hawker Siddeley Company in the matter of aircraft required by the Services. Obviously, we cannot instruct the company which factories, if any, need to be closed, but we certainly insist that its closure policy should have relation not only to economic but to social considerations and to the availability of alternative employment.

Mr. Edelman: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the severance pay which was yesterday offered by Hawker Siddeley is totally inadequate? In these circumstances, will he ask his right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour to use his good offices to ensure that severance pay is equitable?

The Prime Minister: Yes, I have seen reports of the severance pay which has been offered. It is not for me to comment upon its adequacy. In the case of another industry which in the past few years has been run down very much more rapidly than has been the case, or looks like being the case, with aircraft, very generous severance terms were worked out by agreement with both sides of industry. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour

would be prepared to offer his help, advice and guidance to see that similar conditions apply.

PRIME MINISTER (OVERSEAS VISITS)

Mr. Wingfield Digby: asked the Prime Minister what official journeys abroad he proposes to take during the next three months.

The Prime Minister: The dates for my visits to West Berlin, Bonn and Paris have been announced. As has also been announced, I hope fairly soon to visit Rome but the date for this visit has not yet been fixed.

Mr. Digby: While realising that the Prime Minister cannot say very much at this stage about these visits to Germany on 6th March and to President de Gaulle on 1st April—I hope that there is no significance in the date—may I ask whether he can give an assurance, so that there is no misunderstanding, that he will keep our allies fully informed about these conversations?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. This has already been the case, and indeed, so far as certain subjects to be discussed are concerned, this is part of the general inter-allied consultation so that we can all move forward as fast as possible together in agreement on the policies that we shall be discussing.
The hon. Gentleman will be aware that there is outstanding the arrangement for an exchange of visits with the Soviet Union, and there is also the postponed visit to the United States to be fixed up at an appropriate time.

Mr. Michael Foot: When my right hon. Friend goes to Bonn, will he recall that the extraordinary pledge given by the previous Government, whereby this country is committed to keeping four divisions in Germany until the end of the century, was originally given to gratify the French Government? Will he therefore combine these operations and raise this matter with President de Gaulle when he goes there, and ask the President whether he would like to take over some of these obligations?

The Prime Minister: It is going to be rather difficult to be in both places at the


same time. I think that the discussions with each country will be sufficiently difficult in respect of certain of the problems that we have before us without making them triangular in character.

Mr. Ridley: Can the Prime Minister say why he has not included in his itinerary a visit to the capital of one of the E.F.T.A. countries?

The Prime Minister: I hope it will not be too long before I do. The Question referred to the next three months. I have already met and received an official visit from the Prime Minister of Norway. The Prime Minister of Sweden visited this country in December, and I had long talks with him. The Prime Minister of Denmark has been here, and is coming again, so we are in very close communication. This afternoon I am meeting the Vice-Chancellor of Austria, and I think I can say that we are in very close consultation with the E.F.T.A. countries.

ROGER CASEMENT'S REMAINS

The following Question stood upon the Order Paper:

Mr. SIMON MAHON: To ask the Prime Minister whether Her Majesty's Government have now reached a decision on the request for the return to Ireland of the remains of Sir Roger Casement.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I will now answer Question No. Q16.
Her Majesty's Government have now completed their examination of this matter and in response to a request from the Government of the Irish Republic have informed them that they are agreeable to authorising the removal to the Republic of the remains of Roger Casement.
The Government of the Republic have informed Her Majesty's Government of their decision to reinter the remains in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin, and of their intention that they should rest there.
Arrangements have been made with the Government of the Republic for the remains to be transferred to Dublin today.

Mr. Hector Hughes: Does my right hon. Friend realise that to do what he has just said will be done will be welcomed by the citizens of the Irish Republic?

The Prime Minister: This matter has been discussed many times. Everyone is aware of the great difficulties here, but I think we have taken the right decision, and that this will lead to an improved understanding between the two countries.

Sir Knox Cunningham: Will the Prime Minister give similar consideration to any similar request with respect to the remains of William Joyce, commonly called Lord Haw-Haw?

Hon. Members: Answer.

Mr. Speaker: Order. That question clearly does not arise.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind, also, that the Irish people are very anxious that the documents belonging to Sir Roger Casement should be returned? Will he consider that as long as these documents are kept in a hole-and-corner fashion in this country, a large number of Irish people will still believe that they are forgeries? Will he consider returning the documents as well as the bones?

The Prime Minister: In 1959, the documents were transferred to the Public Record Office, and arrangements were made for limited access to them to be agreed to in appropriate circumstances. We have no intention of altering the present position.

Mr. Simon Mahon: On a point of order. According to the Order Paper, this Question appears in my name, Sir.

Mr. Speaker: Yes, I am sorry. If the hon. Member rose, it is my fault for not having seen him. I call him now.

Mr. Mahon: While thanking my right hon. Friend for this wonderful news, may I, on behalf of the Members of the House, express satisfaction and gratitude for what has been done, and ask whether he is aware that many of us in this House feel that this gesture can only lead to a better relationship and understanding between our two countries?

The Prime Minister: I thank my hon. Friend for what he said. I would not


myself call it wonderful news. I think that it is a satisfactory end to an unhappy chapter. I think that it is a commonsense solution, with which I hope the House as a whole will agree.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: On a point of order. Mr. Speaker, could you perhaps consider the procedure which we follow when statements are made? I humbly submit that there are obviously some important issues when Ministers are fully justified in making a statement at the end of Questions, hut now and again issues arise when it is highly questionable whether the matter is of sufficient importance to warrant a statement at the end of Questions.
I wonder whether, in this instance, you would consider whether the issue which has been raised is of sufficient importance to warrant such a statement.

Mr. Speaker: There are various things that arise. One of them is that the Chair does not control the matter. I went into this with some care during the last Parliament. I do not have power to refuse a Minister should he desire to make a statement.
The other thing is that it is very undesirable that anything should be said from the Chair, because sometimes one hears Ministers criticised for making statements, and the next day one hears complaints that they have not made statements to inform the House. It is, therefore, highly undesirable that I should say anything. I know that what the hon. Member has said will have been heard.

ORDER PAPER (NOTICE OF MOTION)

Mr. John Harvey: On a point of order. Mr. Speaker, I have here a copy of the Notices of Motions and Orders of the Day for Tuesday, 23rd February. On page 2735 there is a Motion in the name of the hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Hugh Jenkins) in connection with a Bill—

Mr. Speaker: I wonder whether the hon. Member would be good enough to repeat the page number to which he referred.

Mr. Harvey: It is page 2735.

Mr. Speaker: There is no such page in my copy. Perhaps the hon. Member will explain. I do not want him to go on on a false basis.

Mr. Harvey: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker. The Notices of Motions and Orders of the Day which I obtained from the Vote Office today suggests that at the commencement of Public Business there will be a Motion to bring in a Bill
to dissolve the corporation of the City of London; to extinguish the title of Lord Mayor of London
and other matters. This Motion has disappeared from the Order Paper for today, and I wonder whether you can guide us on what has happened.

Mr. Speaker: The short answer is that it has either been postponed or withdrawn, but I scarcely think that it is a point of order with which I should deal now.

UNITED NATIONS

The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Michael Stewart): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I wish to make a statement on the United Nations.
Now that the General Assembly has adjourned I wish to assure the House that we, and the vast majority of nations, are determined to do our utmost to see that the United Nations shall emerge from this crisis stronger than before. To this end, the Secretary-General and the President of the General Assembly have been invited, as a matter of urgency, to undertake appropriate consultations and a decision has been taken to establish a peace-keeping committee. For this outcome, much credit is due to my noble Friend Lord Caradon.
The committee is required to undertake as soon as possible a comprehensive review of the whole question of peacekeeping operations in all their aspects, including ways of overcoming the present financial difficulties of the organisation. It is to submit a report to the General Assembly not later than 15th June. The Assembly has adjourned until 1st September unless it proves necessary to reconvene it earlier in the light of the committee's report. A single vote necessary to reach this situation,


and postponing the Article 19 issue, was taken without prejudice to conflicting views.
This country intends to play a leading part in the peace-keeping committee and we intend to bring to it new ideas worked out in consultation with experts on United Nations' affairs. Further, as an earnest of our intention, we shall make the following offer of support to United Nations peace-keeping. If so requested, and subject to our national commitments, we will help to provide logistic backing for a United Nations force of up to six infantry battalions. This could include, for example, short-range aircraft, engineering and signal troops, and ambulance, ordnance and motor transport units. If it were desirable, suitable units of these categories would be earmarked for use as available.
Her Majesty's Government also hope to take a share in providing long-range aircraft for the transport of peacekeeping forces. The financing of this offer would depend on the arrangements prevailing at the time.
Great Powers are and should be closely concerned with United Nations problems. But they are not alone; the United Nations must develop as a result of discussions and agreement among all its members, great and small. Small nations have played a great part in the United Nations itself; and it is to their interest and that of the United Nations that they should continue to do so. With this in mind the 18th Session of the General Assembly passed resolutions expanding the Security Council and the Economic and Social Council. This involves Charter amendments, which Her Majesty's Government intend to ratify.
It is one thing to keep the peace; another to settle the problems which threaten peace. A number of experts are considering the process of settling disputes by conciliation, mediation, arbitration and other methods. After examining their recommendations we shall expect to make positive suggestions.
The Security Council, the Economic and Social Council and many other organs of the United Nations can continue their work despite the Assembly's adjournment. Disarmament negotiations can continue; the United Nations Trade

and Development Board can go to work; so can the Human Rights Commission, in which Her Majesty's Government have a keen and continuing interest. We shall continue to work in all these fields. We have announced our increased contribution to technical assistance and the Special Fund.
Great difficulties remain. But we are determined that solutions must be found; the United Nations must be enabled to fulfil its task of keeping the peace and improving the conditions of human life.

Sir Alec Douglas-Home: With the general objectives of the right hon. Gentleman we have full sympathy, but will he allow me to bring him down to earth and reality to some extent? I take it that this peace-keeping committee—it is rather a grandiose title—[HON. MEMBERS: "Shame."] I am asking the right hon. Gentleman for information.
I take it that the peace-keeping committee to which he refers in his statement is not to take the place of the Security Council, or anything like that, but is a purely advisory committee which will see whether it can make recommendations to the Secretary-General or to member States as to how to settle the financial deadlock.
The right hon. Gentleman mentions the question of earmarking. In the last Parliament we were always pressed by his party to earmark forces. As I read his statement, the forces will be earmarked "subject to our national commitments" and "if it were desirable" certain units would be placed in certain situations. How does this differ from the situation which has existed hitherto? I understand that we have always been willing and ready to do this.
Thirdly, and lastly, will the right hon. Gentleman compare the speech made by Secretary-General U Thant, 10 days ago, in the United Nations with a speech I made on the crisis of confidence in the United Nations four years ago?

Mr. Stewart: I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman should have taken the tone he did. Like all human organisations, the United Nations has many defects, particularly in the light of the enormous task that it has to undertake. In my statement—and this was the point of our offer of logistic support—I have endeavoured to recognise that despite the


very great objectives of the United Nations we have to consider what immediate practical thing we can do at any time. That was the purpose of my statement.
As for the nature of the peace-keeping committee, it is not in any sense a substitute for the Security Council. Nor, however, are its functions quite as narrow as the right hon. Gentleman has suggested. As I said, it is charged with a comprehensive review of the whole question of peace-keeping operations in all their aspects, including the present financial difficulties.
Further to the other points that the right hon. Gentleman raised, I do not think that a British Government have ever made as precise an offer as that which I have just announced. I accept that there must necessarily be certain reservations in it, but when the peace-keeping committee gets to its work and we, together with the other nations, are able to see what general structure for peace-keeping is emerging, we shall be able to make our own offer in a more precise form.
I do not charge my memory with the speeches made by the right hon. Gentleman four years ago. I hope that he will be prepared to agree that this is a useful and constructive contribution in what has been a very serious crisis in United Nations history.

Mr. Ronald Bell: On a point of order. In view of your Ruling a few minutes ago, Mr. Speaker, that making statements after Questions is not under your control, is the sentence with which these statements usually start—and with which the statement started today—"With your leave, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House", appropriate? Has it any significance?

Mr. Speaker: I never see anything inappropriate about courtesy, and a courtesy it is.

Mr. Grimond: As I understand from the Foreign Secretary, this is a clear decision and the committee will now definitely come into being. Has any proposal been made as to which nations should serve on it? Further, what is the attitude of the Russians? Will the forces that we have earmarked for it be available in support of the United Nations forces which are already in the field, or is this purely another force for the future?

Does the word "earmark" mean, for instance—which would seem rather inportant for its logistic rôle—that this force will be available for training with forces of other nations? If so, how will this be carried out and under whose command will it be?

Mr. Stewart: I think that the right hon. Gentleman asked me first about the membership of the peace-keeping committee. The President of the General Assembly hopes to announce its composition within the next few days, when he has completed his consultations. This country, of course, will be a member of it. I do not think we need anticipate any difficulties arising. We have only to await the exact statement of the President of the General Assembly.
The offer referred to by the right hon. Gentleman does relate to future peacekeeping operations. It is intended as a contribution to the committee's work. Quite clearly, the earmarking of units does imply that suitable training must be given. The details of that, I think, are more a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence.

Mr. E. L. Mallalieu: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the very great satisfaction with which this statement will be greeted throughout the world will be heightened by a sense of relief that the right hon. Gentleman opposite, with his constant sneers at the United Nations, is no longer in charge of our affairs?

Lady Tweedsmuir: Will the Foreign Secretary say whether any of the member States over two years in arrears with their financial contributions to the organisation took part in the vote which postponed the Article 19 issue? If so, although it was a procedural one, and great care was taken to settle all procedural matters behind the scenes, does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that this would seem to compromise Her Majesty's Government's support of the ruling of the International Court of Justice on the matter?

Mr. Stewart: No, I do not think that it will compromise us or the position in any way. This vote arose as a result of a quite unexpected intervention by the Albanian delegate in the General Assembly. It was generally understood by all parties concerned that this was a


procedural vote and there was a statement by the President of the Assembly that all parties preserved the reservation of their positions for the future.
I understand the point which the hon. Lady has in mind, but I believe it was right, in view of the safeguards, that the vote should be taken.
I should have referred to the mention by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union took part in this vote and supported the establishment of the peace-keeping committee.

Mr. Ennals: I welcome my right hon. Friend's statement and the indication at this moment of crisis in the United Nation's history that Britain has stood firmly behind the United Nations. May I ask my right hon. Friend, who referred to the fact that other activities could go on, whether the British Government would take the initiative to bring about an early meeting of the 18-nation disarmament conference in Geneva?

Mr. Stewart: I think that that carries me a bit beyond the terms of the statement. Perhaps my hon. Friend would put down a further Question on that matter.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: Since the Foreign Secretary cannot remember the Berwick speech and other courageous statements made by the Leader of the Opposition when Prime Minister—[HON. MEMBERS: "He was Foreign Secretary."]—when he was Foreign Secretary, before becoming Prime Minister, may I ask whether he would study them, because if the advice of my right hon. Friend had been followed, the present parlous state of this world organisation might have been avoided?

Mr. Stewart: It is a bit much to ask me to remember the right hon. Gentleman's speeches when his own supporters cannot remember what office he was holding at the time when he made them. I do, of course, have a great deal to study in my present office, but I shall be happy to do my best to refresh my memory of such contributions as the right hon. Gentleman has made.

Mr. John Hynd: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the overwhelming

majority of people in this country and the Commonwealth and beyond will, in contradistinction to the Leader of the Opposition, welcome the initiative from this country in this very necessary task of reorganising the United Nations?
With regard to the peace-keeping force, can my right hon. Friend tell me whether he has any information that other countries have made or are ready to make a similar kind of offer?

Mr. Stewart: The answer to the latter part of my hon. Friend's question is, not to my present knowledge. Regarding the first part of his question, I believe that that is so.
As I said in reply to the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, it is very easy to point out all the shortcomings of international organisations. Mankind at present is living in a world which is not organised politically for the complexities of modern life. It is trying gradually to put that political organisation together. That is a laborious task in which perhaps some false starts may be made. The United Nations is the main instrument we have for that purpose. I believe that it is right to take whatever practical steps we can to strengthen it.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We cannot proceed without a Question before the House.

COMPLAINT OF PRIVILEGE

Mr. Speaker: Yesterday, the hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Warbey) made a complaint to me of a breach of privilege founded on some passages which he read out of an article from the Spectator of 19th February and from the Daily Telegraph of 22nd February
I have carefully considered the hon. Gentleman's complaint. In my view, it does not, prima facie, raise a matter of privilege and I so rule.
The House and the hon. Member will understand that the effect of my so ruling is that I cannot give his complaint precedence over the business of the day. It in no way prevents him, or any other hon. Member, from raising it in some other way should he think fit to do so.

Mr. Warbey: While not questioning your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, may I call your attention to a further—

Mr. Speaker: No, not on this topic. The hon. Member will understand that the effect of my Ruling is that we cannot discuss the matter now.

Mr. Sydney Silverman: You will remember, Mr. Speaker, indeed you have yourself said in your Ruling, that although you have decided it is not a prima facie case, this does not prevent the House, nevertheless, from sending it to the Committee of Privileges, if the House wishes. To do that there would have to be a Motion, and time to discuss it. Would it be in order for me to ask my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House whether he would be prepared to find such time?

Mr. Speaker: Not now, for the reason I have given. Should the hon. Member table a Motion, no doubt a later opportunity will occur to ask that question.

Mr. Warbey: What I wished to do was to call your attention, Mr. Speaker, to further writings which have only come to my attention—

Mr. Speaker: Order. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to raise another complaint of privilege founded on something else, by all means let him do so. The point he has already raised is disposed of for today.

Mr. Warbey: I do wish to do so, but I have to point out that they are related to the matter which I raised yesterday. They are two further writings which have come to my attention since yesterday. One is a writing in the Notts Free Press for 19th February—

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman would be out of time to raise that now.

Mr. Warbey: With respect, Sir, the Notts Free Press is a local periodical which is sent to me by post. Owing to delays over the weekend, it did not reach me until yesterday afternoon.

Mr. Speaker: It is the hon. Gentleman's misfortune, or the fault of the

Post Office, I do not know which, but it is still out of time.

Mr. Warbey: In that case, I would call attention to the other writing, which is a postcard—[Laughter]—which reached me this morning, which was dated 21st February, that is, Sunday, but which I received only this morning. It says:
"Dear Mr. Warbey,
Listening to your comments on TV, I formed the opinion that you are only in the Labour Party to further the Communist cause.

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I would remind the House that the hon. Gentleman is making a complaint of breach of privilege to the Chair, and that such a complaint should be heard in silence.

Mr. Warbey: To continue, the following words are underlined:
Be good enough to admit this and change your party!
and the signature is, "Realist".
I think that the reaction of a large number of hon. Members on the other side of the House to my reading of the words in this communication is a sufficient indication of my complaint that the purpose of this communication is to intimidate me from expressing my rights of free speech in this House and from my right to have those expressions listened to by other hon. Members of the House as honest expressions of my own opinions.

Mr. Speaker: Will the hon. Gentleman he good enough to bring me the communication on which he relies?

Postcard handed in.

Mr. Speaker: I will rule upon the hon. Gentleman's complaint tomorrow.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: On a point of order. With respect, Mr. Speaker, you have said that you will rule on this tomorrow. Is it appropriate that we should waste your time and the time of the House on Rulings—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The matter is one for me, on which I desire no counselling.

TREASURY CONTROL OF ESTAB LISHMENTS (ESTIMATES COM MITTEE REPORTS)

4.6 p.m.

Sir Eric Errington: I beg to move,
That this House takes note of the Fifth Report and of the Ninth Special Report from the Estimates Committee in the last Session of the last Parliament relating to Treasury Control of Establishments.
I think that the fact that the Estimates Committee has an opportunity to deal with these matters in the full House is of very considerable advantage, because the debate can take place after a lapse of some months and some of the recommendations can be dealt with as a result of experience during that period. This Report, together with the Special Report, is, on the whole, a very satisfactory subject, but it is quite clear that, as the result of it, there are from time to time matters for consideration on the basis of differences of emphasis, which are nearly as important as differences of principle.
May I mention one of the matters which is a matter of pleasure, I am sure, to everybody on the Estimates Committee? That is that the Report was published in May and the replies to that Report were published in July. There have been prior occasions on which the replies had been delayed for over a year. It is very satisfactory that the Treasury, at any rate, realises that it is important that these matters coming from the Estimates Committee should be dealt with by the Departments promptly.
The Report divides itself easily into two. The first part is the complementing procedure which is contained in Recommendations 1 to 8, and the second is the management functions of the Treasury in Recommendations 9 to 13. Dealing with the questions of the complementing, the modern position of the Treasury is based, in the opinion of the Estimates Committee, on Treasury Circular E.C. No. 2/49 of 29th July, 1949. I think that it is only right that I should read this, as this is the basis on which, one understands, the complementing of the Treasury is based.
Paragraph 2(ii) says:
The functions of the Treasury in the financial control and oversight of staff matters are most effectively carried out by concentration on broad issues and avoidance of matters of detail. The Treasury will therefore

direct itself chiefly to the central control and scrutiny of the exercise of their responsibilities by the Departments.
Then, paragraph 2(iii) says:
In addition to exercising its general control over complements and numbers, the Treasury also has an important responsibility for securing an even standard of grading of posts throughout Departments.
This is a very important matter into which the Estimates Sub-Committee went very carefully. The quotation of the 1949 circular went on:
This may necessitate rather closer examination of particular branches and posts than would be required from the point of view of numbers alone.
The position was that the Sixth Report of the Estimates Committee, 1957–58, recommended that there should be an investigation into the Treasury control of establishments, and that was followed by a Report of the first Committee under Lord Plowden on the Control of Public Expenditure. Following that, in November 1962, there was a reorganisation of the Treasury. That reorganisation was directed not so much to complement and establishment problems as to the general management by the Treasury of Government organisation. There seem to have been some departure in principle from the 1949 document. The Estimates Committee takes the view that the Treasury must continue to control numbers and complementing and must, in accordance with the 1949 document, have a duty to inspect and survey the activities of the Departments.
As a result of the expression of these views, the Estimates Committee has been described as "Gladstonian counter-revolutionaries". I am not sure that that is a very accurate description, and the answer of the Treasury, at page 8 of the Special Report, confirms the views which I have expressed. I quote the last paragraph of the Report:
The Committee may be assured that the Treasury remain conscious of their ultimate responsibility for the control of complements and grading. A departmental Minister is answerable to Parliament for the efficiency of his department, and can reasonably expect to be supported by staff of numbers and types adequate to carry out Government policy in his departmental field; but the Treasury are not unmindful of the principles laid down in 1949 as to their relationship with departments over the control of complements and grading, and are fully conscious of their responsibility to the House of Commons in these matters.
That is a general principle which seems to be agreed, and it would be of value if


the Financial Secretary would confirm that that is the case.
There are one or two detailed questions which have arisen since the publication of the Treasury replies about which I should like to ask. The first is contained in Observation No. 3, which deals with the question of the Establishments (Complementing) Division. It states that it
is being strengthened to meet the tasks which fall to it.
I should be glad to know in what way it has been strengthened and whether the Government are satisfied that it is now strong enough to deal with the problems which arise and which to some extent have been increased by the fact that there are a number of new departments.
The next question arises under Recommendation 1, which was that the Treasury should require Departments to submit their October returns in a regular sequence. According to the evidence given before the Sub-Committee, it was often found that returns were made late and were not satisfactory, and it was felt that there should be arrangements to make it quite clear that the returns should be made regularly at certain times in October.
Observation No. 2 deals with the question of delegation of authority. It reads:
In addition, Departments have been asked whether they desire to have a measure of delegated authority or an extension of present delegated authority in relation to their departmental classes.
It would be very helpful to know whether there has been any change in the delegation of authority. Has it increased or decreased?
The final recommendation on which I should like an answer is Recommendation 3—the question of preparing a programme for the systematic and regular inspection of Departments. There was much concern in the Committee about this. It was felt that a regular inspection would have the result of keeping Departments on their toes.
Recommendation 4 is one of the recommendations which we felt in the Estimates Committee was of considerable importance. It raises the question of the Diplomatic Service, and it arises from the decision following the second Report of the Plowden Committee that there

should be a 10 per cent. reserve of manpower for the Diplomatic Service which would not be tied to any establishment.
During the Committee's investigations it appeared that a decision had been taken to reduce the 10 per cent, reserve of manpower to 7½3 per cent., which meant that between 300 and 450 bodies would be outside a definite establishment. The Committee took the view that the percentage basis was a very unsatisfactory way of dealing with this situation, in spite of the fact that the Foreign Service had certain characteristics which were not present with other Departments. It seemed to us that the instruction on establishments was, in principle, the same as that outlined in a 1949 Treasury circular, the words of which I must repeat, because that document stated:
The Treasury also has an important responsibility for securing an even standard of grading of posts throughout departments".
I would like to think that it is considered that this percentage addition to the departmental staffing of the Foreign Service is not satisfactory and that it will be looked at again by the Government. The matter could easily be dealt with by the creation of adequate establishment posts. This establishment idea is very unfortunate and might have considerable repercussions. It would appear that the Estimates Committee will need to examine with greater care than it would normally look at establishments the affairs of any Department which has increased its staffing percentage-wise.
I come to Recommendations 5 to 7, concerning the Defence Ministry, and I would like to say at the outset how glad I was to note paragraph 189 of the Statement on the Defence Estimates, published today. There was not as much involved as was thought would be necessary in the combining of the Services under one Defence Ministry and there was not the necessity for the number of bodies anticipated. I believe that it was thought that 312 bodies would be necessary for this purpose but, as things turned out, only 70 were needed over and above the combined totals of the Services.
I note that in paragraph 188 of the Statement there is to be a substantial reduction both at headquarters and at out-stations, and it is a matter of some


satisfaction that we read in paragraph 189:
It has been accepted, in accordance with the recommendation in the Fifth Report of the Estimates Committee … that there should be a specific inquiry into the organisation and establishments of the Ministry within two years.
I am sure that that will be a satisfactory way of dealing with the matter.
I come to Recommendation 8, which states:
The Treasury should ensure that work study units are established in all Departments employing large numbers of industrial staff".
This is an important matter and something about which we did not take a great deal of evidence. However, it speaks for itself, because the numbers of industrial staff in the Ministry are substantial and the advance in the knowledge of work study is something giving considerable benefits. Could we be told whether the Ministry of Aviation and the Ministry of Public Building and Works, as well as the Ministry of Defence, deal with work study?
I cannot recall this matter having been raised previously, but it is worth noting that work study is accompanied by another form of technique which is of considerable importance and which, I believe, will be of growing importance, particularly in defence matters—value engineering and value analysis.
Having referred to the establishment side of our Report, I come to Recommendations 9 to 13, which deal with management. It is not unlikely that this should be so because it is fair to say that Lord Plowden's Report dealt strongly and ably with the question of management from the Treasury point of view. This subject is of very great importance because we must have the right sort of management methods.
I do not propose to mention the subject of recruiting for the Civil Service, because Sub-Committee E of the Estimates Committee is going into that matter. On the subject of training, it would be interesting to know if there have been any changes in development at the Centre for Administrative Studies. Unlike some hon. Members, we were able to pay only one visit to the Centre. We were impressed with the work going on there and with the enthusiasm and

interest shown by those receiving the benefit of the course.
I wish to comment more particularly on the Report of the Joint Working Party on Training. That Working Party was proceeding at the time we were investigating these matters. It had in mind the question of the establishment of a staff college for senior or middle-rank officers. We therefore did not go into the matter at all. However, we thought that it was important and we reserved our position on it so that we might subsequently learn what was being done on these matters. It would be helpful if we could be told the general nature of the decisions taken, as we were given to understand from the evidence given to us that a report would be issued soon.
This suggestion of a staff college for administrative purposes was rejected in 1949, but we were told that it was receiving active consideration by the Working Party. For this reason we did not make any specific recommendations about training. It would be helpful to know, in connection with Recommendation 9, whether the scientific side of the Civil Service has been reorganised. In Recommendation 9, hon. Members will observe, we suggest that there should be a stimulation of recruitment into the scientific side by the provision of a better careers structure and that there should be opportunity for those in the scientific class to transfer, should they wish to do so, to the administrative side.
Recommendations 11 and 12 deal with the question of O and M advice to Departments. It is presumed that this section will have planned reviews but, of course, it is particularly important when there are a number of new Departments which will, presumably, value advice given by those experienced in organisation and methods matters. In that connection, it would be of interest to know whether computerization—that is a horrible word, but it conveys an idea—is developing, and whether the Government take the view that the Treasury is right to develop in that way.
Recommendation 13 is important, dealing, as it does, with the Management Services (General) Division. This body—which was felt by the Committee to be understaffed—is supposed to take a long


and broad view of general problems, particularly for the future. Indeed, it was said in one place that it almost amounts to a body that might consider the machinery of Government. One is, therefore, bound to ask what part the Division played in the creation of the new Departments, whether its numbers have increased, and whether it has been given a chance to play a full part in a situation that seemed to offer great opportunities.
The Committee paid particular attention to the Management Services (General) Division. which is rightly considered important because it does that forward thinking that is so important in certain circumstances. Over all, the Estimates Committee consider that the Division and the Treasury are allies, and work together for the general benefit of the organisation of Government.
The Estimates Committee felt that very often the highest officers were at the head of things in Departments for too short a time—senior officers for about four years, and junior officers for three years and two. We felt that that was not enough, particularly at the Treasury. We believe that in the Treasury, which is in a position to set an example, and to encourage and help other Departments, it is most desirable that officers, particularly senior officers, should remain, if possible, for a longer period.
I am sorry if the way in which I have spoken about this subject—or the facts of the case—make it not as interesting as it might be, but it is fair to say that when we get into the thing and see the problems and difficulties, it becomes of fascinating interest. It may not always be done by spokesmen of the Estimates Committee, but I can congratulate the Treasury generally on its work.

4.35 p.m.

Mr. John Rankin: would, first, congratulate my hon. and learned Friend the Financial Secretary on the eminence that has come to him. I am very glad that he is to reply to this debate, as I feel sure that his reply will be more helpful than the replies I have been fated to get from other occupants of the post to which he has been called.
I can also say, on behalf of my colleagues in Sub-Committee C, how much we appreciate the work of the Chairman

of the Committee, the hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir E. Errington). He puts an almost unbelievable amount of his time between sittings of the Committee into this job, and today he has covered very fully the scope of the Report. We congratulate him, not only on his work in the Committee but also on the way in which he has handled the Report.
We were up against a very powerful Department in the Treasury, and in the very valuable memoranda that it supplied to us we were given a little of the history of its evolution. I am certain that we were all impressed. We were told that the Department came into existence in the first half of the nineteenth century as part of the movement to create a unified Civil Service. Time, at least, is therefore on its side, but its immense authority is supplemented from other and even more powerful sources.
The Treasury has, first, the general power vested in the Chancellor of the Exchequer of controlling public expenditure. Secondly, it has the statutory powers under the Exchequer and Audit Departments Acts. Thirdly, it has the requirement of Treasury approval that is included in many other Acts. Fourthly, it has the right to give instructions or to make regulations for controlling the conduct of Her Majesty's Home Service, and for providing for the classification, remuneration and other conditions of service of all persons employed therein either permanently or temporarily.
This is a vast and growing power, and it is evidenced, first, by the way in which the Civil Service has increased numerically. We were told that in 1939 there was a total of 191,200 non-industrial staff, which had increased by 1963 to 412,500. The number of industrial staff in 1939 was over 190,000, and by 1963 it had grown to 263,000. Between those two years, there was a growth from 380,300 to 675,600 in the non-industrial and industrial strength of the Civil Service. These numbers at both levels exclude the Post Office staffs.
However, our investigation showed that the scope of the Department had greatly increased in that period. Naturally, this meant an increase in numbers; and new Departments have also emerged during this period. In addition, there has been a startling increase in the cost of living.


For, not only persons, but supply is involved. For the year ending March, 1965, the total supply service, including the Supplementary Estimates which have been passed since or are presently before us, reaches the grand total of £6,723 million. This is a vast sum in relation to our gross national product.
As we have seen today, this sum will be somewhat increased. The main function of the Estimates Committee is to ensure that adequate value is received for these sums when they are spent. Sub-Committee C, however, was concerned with only a relatively small part of this huge expenditure, but it was still a very large sum—about £700 million, involving the work and future of over 675,000 persons.
Despite these enormous powers, our witnesses were exceptionally helpful to the Committee and, as the Ninth Special Report shows, have rejected only three of our recommendations. It may be said that some of their acceptances are qualified. So, it can be said, were some of their refusals. I should like to press to the notice of my hon. and learned Friend the Financial Secretary some points which, I agree, have been mentioned by the hon. Member for Aldershot, but repetition is sometimes useful, in that it puts greater emphasis on the point. I shall hope at least to emphasise the importance of these points in my repetition.
Paragraph 45 of the Fifth Report deals with computers. We are told that seven are on order, 32 are in use, and there is a future requirement of 21 up to 1967. Cannot this figure be increased? We have, recently, in our own midst had the position of retirement pensioners. It was emphasised then that, had computers been available or usable in the Ministry of Pensions, they would have been of great help to the Government in speeding up the payment of benefits. Has anything been proposed about mechanising the Aliens Index at the Home Office? And what is being done about replacing out-of-date machines?
The hon. Member for Aldershot mentioned the scientific Civil Service. We are told in the reply to Recommendation 9 that the organisation of this service, including questions of career structure, is now being examined. Has this examination

been completed? If so, could my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary tell us what the results are? If not, why has it not been completed? The Committee found that recruitment of scientists was not up to standard. This is emphasised in Question 473, and succeeding questions. Was the fact that it was not up to standard due to the absence of a better career structure? I ask my hon. Friend to press ahead with this very important matter.
May I say a few words about Treasury staff, supplementing what my colleague said? We express our view, in paragraph 48, that we
could not undertake a full review of the system of Treasury control of establishments without considering the structure and organisation of the Treasury and the quality of the Treasury staff who are responsible for the establishments of the Departments.
We found in that examination that too many Treasury people at top level had little or no previous experience of Treasury work and that there were too many changes at the top. Since we said that, the then Third Secretary on the management side has been moved twice. There have been four Third Secretaries in Defence, Arts and Science in about two years. Changes have taken place in three Departments in two years. We believe that this cannot be good for Treasury control. I ask my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to undertake that there should be greater effort to achieve continuity at the top and a much higher proportion of people in the establishment with considerable previous Treasury experience.
I hope that in reply my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary will give us a great deal more consideration and enable us to believe that in our Report on this occasion we have made a greater advance than we felt we made on the last occasion we submitted a Report to the House.

4.50 p.m.

Mr. Alan Hopkins: I should like to join the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin) in paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir E. Errington) on taking the chair in this most happy Sub-Committee C in the last Parliament. It was the third occasion on which I had the great privilege of serving on that Committee and I am sure that my


hon. Friend will agree that we not only had most interesting evidence from the Treasury, but, also, that the recommendations we made were largely accepted by the Treasury, which was somewhat different from what happened with an earlier Report on immigration.
I have often thought that the Estimates Committee relies upon the lack of innate knowledge in hon. Members who sit upon Sub-Committees and who are so ably assisted by the Clerk, to whom very often too little credit is given for what is eventually produced. This leads me to the thought that it might be appropriate at some future stage to consider whether the scope of these Committees might be extended by affording them expert advice to assist them and the Clerk in what they do.
I should like to make three short points on the Committee's Report. The first concerns Recommendation 9, that
The Treasury should take positive steps to stimulate the recruitment of scientists by producing a better career structure within the Scientific Class, and should encourage the transfer of members of the Scientific class to the Administrative class.
I am most interested to know that the recommendation was accepted by the Treasury. I hope that the Financial Secretary, in replying to the debate, will be able to indicate whether progress has been made on these lines.
I was most impressed by the evidence given by one of the deputy chairmen of Imperial Chemical Industries, who indicated that the dividing line between the scientist and the administrator at the very top was virtually non-existent, whereas it is generally the case today in the Civil Service that there is a distinct difference not only between the scientific class and the administrative class, but also between the administrative class and the executive class. One of the witnesses told us that this barrier—which was the word actually used—is gradually being broken down. I hope that the Financial Secretary can say that in the case of transfers between the scientific and the administrative classes the barrier is no longer there.
The Committee's Recommendation 10 refers to the need, which was developed in evidence, to establish some links between the civil service and industry both at home and abroad. I readily accept that that is difficult. Indeed, the

opportunities are not in number as great as they might be for such an exchange, but I still believe that it is useful for senior civil servants to get some idea of the workings of industry and the benefit of experience and research in the universities both here and abroad. Again, the evidence presented by the Treasury was that this was being done at the moment, although on a limited scale. I accept that the scope is limited but can the Financial Secretary say that this, I hope, useful transfer is being looked into now and whether any progress is being made with it?
Finally, there is the question of the use of computers. The hon. Member for Govan made the point which I intended to make. I will not, therefore, re-emphasise it, but it is clear from what we were told that there is not only a present need for more computers, but that the need is likely to increase as the years go by. The hon. Member gave one good illustration. I can see the need for the computers and for their continual modernisation, because these machines do not have a life of 10 years as they are used in the Civil Service. The situation should be reviewed every five years and evidence given to the Treasury whether new machines should be substituted for the old or additional ones ordered.
I join once again, in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot on so successfully leading what was a most interesting Committee.

4.55 p.m.

Mr. William Hamilton: I agree very much with the hon. Member for Bristol, North-East (Mr. Hopkins) when he makes the point about the desirability of interchange between the Civil Service and industry. Whatever one may think about the appointment of Dr. Beeching, for example, to advise on transport problems there is no doubt that within the terms of his remit he did a very good job. If we had more of that kind of interchange it would be of enormous value to industry and to the Government and, therefore, to the nation.
Before I refer briefly to some of the other points made by the hon. Member and also by the hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir E. Errington), I would point out that the debate on this Report is unlikely


to have as much publicity value as the debate on the last occasion, when we discussed military expenditure overseas. There is not the kind of scandal, if I might so call it, in this Report as there appeared to be in the Report on military expenditure overseas—the £1,000 R.A.F. dogs in Singapore and the allegedly expensive officers' flats in Gibraltar. Things of that kind are meat and drink to the Press. There is no such meat and drink for them in this Report, but although the Report itself is much less exciting in that respect it is no less important for all that.
The Report fits into a pattern of Estimates Committee Reports over a period of years. The hon. Member for Farnham (Sir G. Nicholson), the former Chairman of the Estimates Committee, was Chairman of the Sub-Committee which produced the Sixth Report in 1957–58 on Treasury control. Out of that came the Plowden Committee recommendations which resulted in the most drastic overhaul of the Treasury that has been undertaken for 100 years. Then we have had this Report on Treasury Control of Establishments and, as the hon. Member for Aldershot mentioned, there is an investigation currently under way under Sub-Committee E on the working of the Civil Service Commission in matters of recruiting, training, and so on.
The Estimates Committee has done an extremely good job in focussing attention on the rôle of the Treasury in controlling establishments, in controlling the financial set-up of the nation, and in controlling the methods by which we recruit civil servants, train them, pay them, and so on.
Basically, this Report is concerned with the efficient use of the scarcest and, in many ways, the most valuable commodity in Britain today, educated manpower. The figures which the Committee produced are interesting in denoting the very size of the problem: 412,500 non-industrial civil servants and 263,100 industrial civil servants, a total of 675,600, at April, 1963, and that did not include the Post Office, which itself is an enormous employer of labour.
It is clear that, as the scope of government increases in size and complexity, so does the work and the number of

civil servants in the Government's employ increase. The history of the development of Treasury control over these vastly increasing numbers affords an interesting example of the British empirical approach to problems of government. But the end result has been an enormous concentration of power in the Treasury, and this despite the freedom of certain major Departments to vary their complements.
As the hon. Member for Aldershot said, the Sub-Committee confined its inquiries to the working of the various Treasury divisions concerned with this problem, especially to the arrangement of those divisions on a more functional basis consequent on the internal reorganisation of the Treasury in November, 1962, a reorganisation and rearrangement designed
to contribute more positively to good management throughout the Civil Service".
The reorganisation itself is, naturally, commended by the Estimates Committee, through whose activities the Plowden Committee was set up and on whose recommendation the reorganisation was carried out. On the management side, the Estimates Committee's criticisms are, I think, of detail only; no serious criticism comes out of the Report on that side. On the staffing side, however, there are rather more serious criticisms. In particular, the Committee was disturbed about the approach to the control of numbers laid down in 1949, to which the hon. Member for Aldershot referred.
This was the Treasury control of numbers and grading in the Civil Service by twice-yearly manpower reviews at which the total ceiling of a Department's non-industrial staff is fixed. Below that figure, there was a freedom for Departments as to numbers and grades in particular fields, up to the level of their delegated authority. As was pointed out in the Report, the Treasury staff inspectors carry out test checks.
Concern was expressed that the Plowden Committee seemed to recommend that there should be some equality of status between Departments and the Treasury in the control of the numbers of civil servants in particular Departments, and it appeared to the Sub-Committee—I was not on it, but I think that I am interpreting its view aright—that


this seemed to run counter to the relationship between the Departments and the Treasury as laid down in 1949.
Any hostility between the Treasury and Departments is undesirable. They are part of the same team with, presumably, the same objectives. But each Government Department must clearly understand that the Treasury has the right to inspect regularly and to root out quite ruthlessly any inefficiency which it sees. In this respect, as the Estimates Committee said, the Treasury must be the agent of the House of Commons. This House is not a body which can do that kind of thing, and we have to rely on the Treasury to do it on our behalf. It can be done without hostility. The great skill of the Treasury is in seeing that it is done without incurring hostility on the part of Departments. When the Estimates Committee made this point, appropriate noises were made by the Treasury in its reply, and I hope that my hon. and learned Friend will repeat and enlarge on those welcome noises.
I turn now to some of the specific recommendations of the Sub-Committee, in particular to Recommendation 4, on the question whether there should be a percentage reserve of manpower for the new Diplomatic Service and, if so, what the percentage should be. The Plowden Committee on Representational Services Overseas recommended that the new service should have a 10 per cent. reserve of manpower to be retained permanently for the purposes of training, travel, leave and sick leave.
The recommendations of the Plowden Committee were accepted by the Government of the day almost without qualification, but I was very glad to know, and I think that the Committee was very glad to know, that in their evidence to the Sub-Committee the Treasury witnesses did not defend very strenuously the 10 per cent. margin. They even said that the 7½1 per cent. margin which is now agreed will not be reached for at least two years.
I do not know where these percentages come from, whether they are based on past experience or what. Perhaps the point came out in the evidence and I overlooked it, but I do not think that it did. In any case, I hope that the question will be watched with an extremely critical eve. I do not like the idea of giving a percentage margin. I prefer to

look at each case on its merits, and I hope that the Treasury will think about this again and, at the very least, watch it in a highly critical mood.
If it can be proved convincingly that the service will suffer in efficiency if it has no margin, I am prepared to be convinced, but I do not at present consider that the case has been made, although, of course, I respect the opinion and recommendation of the highly expert and capable Plowden Committee. The Estimates Committee might well, at some future date, spend a little time—perhaps soon—inquiring into the working of the new arrangements in this connection.
Recommendation 6 concerns the reorganised Defence Department. The House will recall that the old Service Departments were integrated into one Department on 1st April last. The immediate result was not a decrease, but an increase in staff. The Sub-Committee found that there was an increase of 901 non-industrial United Kingdom-based staff for the year 1963–64 and an increase of headquarters staff at the Department of 312 in the current financial year—roughly a 12 per cent. increase.
The Treasury pointed out that the net increase was only 70 and that, by 1st April, 1965, the total headquarters staff will be less by 300 than the figure on 1st April, 1964, and between 800 and 1,000 less at out-stations. The hon. Member for Aldershot quoted the Defence White Paper which fortuitously came out on the very day we were debating this and it is interesting to compare the forecast with what has happened. I hope that my hon. and learned Friend the Financial Secretary will give us a little more detail and try to project the figures more into the future, indicating whether hope can be entertained for further reductions later on.
Recommendation 8 concerns the desirability—indeed, the necessity—of establishing work study units in the Departments employing a large number of industrial staff. Industrial staff total about 400,000 both at home and abroad and in Appendix 4 of the Report the Treasury shows that work study teams exist in the Defence Department, the Forestry Commission and the Royal Mint. These last two are not very big


Departments, but employ a fair number of industrial staff. I took the trouble to tot up the figures and, if my arithmetic is right, work study teams in all these Departments, including the Defence Department, cover about 188,000 industrial staff, only about half the total.
I should be glad if my hon. and learned Friend would confirm or correct those figures. If only half the industrial civil servants are covered, then there is an unsatisfactory state of affairs and I hope that he will give an assurance that the other half will be covered by work study units within a measurable period of time. Indeed, the Treasury has said that it is seeking to do something about this. I would like to know what has been done and whether tangible results have come about since the Report was issued.
Recommendation 9 deals with the desirability of a better career structure within the scientific class of the Civil Service. I do not want to spend too much time on this because a Sub-Committee under the chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough, West (Dr. Bray), who is very interested in the subject, is going into the question of recruiting and training civil servants. But this is probably one of the most important recommendations of the Committee. We talk a lot today about living in a scientific age and about the need to train more scientists and technologists, but it still seems to be the case that the top-class scientist or first-rate technologist is regarded somehow as being a lesser mortal than the classics scholar from Oxford or Cambridge.
Recently, there were figures showing the number of places in colleges of advanced technology which are not being taken up. We have more places than people asking for them, and I think that this is precisely because of the feeling that, somehow or other, despite the scientific age, despite the fact that our future depends on training more and more scientists and technologists, there is still a feeling among young people that scientists and technologists are less worthy individuals than people who have first-class honours degrees in Latin or Greek, or something of that kind.
Not only are we not getting sufficient scientific and technological students into

our universities and C.A.T.s, but once they are qualified very few of them, fewer certainly than we would like, are attracted into the Civil Service. As has been pointed out, one possible explanation of this lies in the lack of an attractive career structure and in the inability of science graduates in the Civil Service to reach the higher posts.
In evidence to the Sub-Committee, the Treasury witness refuted the suggestion that it is not possible for the scientist in the Civil Service to get to be the head of a Department, a permanent secretary. But if it be the case that scientists can reach the top, as the witness alleged, perhaps my hon. and learned Friend will tell us how many have done so in, say, the last 10 years. It would be interesting to have the figures. I doubt whether there is one. The Treasury has indicated in its reply that the career structure is being examined and we would much like a progress report. When might we expect the result of the examination?
The second part of Recommendation 9 deals with transfer from the scientific to the administrative class. The Treasury has indicated that it has already taken steps to facilitate and encourage this transfer and that is fine—as far as it goes. But that in itself starts from the premise that, somehow or other, the administrative class is a kind of elite club of supermen to which lesser mortals are now being given limited access. Why was it never suggested that the administrative class should have a chance to transfer?
This is like the education system in which there is freedom of transfer between secondary modern and grammar schools. We emphasise in that context, however, that the secondary modern child can transfer to the grammar school. We do not transfer the other way unless it is as a form of punishment. It is, in fact, a form of punishment to go from a grammar school to a secondary modern school. It is a very unhealthy state of affairs when, in a scientific age, the scientific class of the Civil Service is regarded as of less importance than this super administrative class. I hope that as a result of the Treasury's examination of the careers structure of the scientific class, this regrettable and dangerous attitude, dangerous for the nation, will be altered.
I end with this short but important point. Basically, the debate is about the


most efficient use of manpower in the Government machine. In that respect it is part of the much bigger but essentially same problem as we face on a national basis. Our future survival as a great nation depends upon its resolution.

5.21 p.m.

Mr. Ian Lloyd: It gives me great pleasure to be able to discuss the subject of computers. I must confess that this is something which I had not expected to have the opportunity to do here. Perhaps it is an indication of the extent of what one might call real time management, to use the modern phrase, in the House of Commons, that new Members like myself should have discovered, literally only half an hour ago, that it would be possible to discuss computers in a debate on the Report of the Select Committee on Estimates.
We have not begun to appreciate the enormous national importance of this type of equipment. I have read the Select Committee's Report on this subject with great interest. It points out that a certain number of computers are installed and that others are on order, but it gives no idea of the power of those machines. I do not mean merely the technical capacity of a single computer, but the fact that a battery of computers can now be regarded in terms of power in much the same way as one regards the generating capacity of an electrical system.
How soon will it be before we are able to see some sort of figures to show the growth in our national computer capacity? There are some figures, which I shall have to recall somewhat hurriedly from memory, which suggest that we should regard this matter very seriously. For example, I have been told that the Philips factory in Eindhoven alone has an installed computer capacity considerably greater than that of several industries in this country. I have been told that the Boeing Aeroplane Company on the west coast of the United States alone has an installed computer capacity greater than that of the whole of the aircraft industry in this country.
If this is so and if the House appreciates that it is and we can go on from there to realise what the significance is in national terms, this Report will have been extremely valuable, and if we can draw more attention to the national significance,

we will have done something extremely useful in this debate.
The hon. Member for Bristol, North-East (Mr. Hopkins) referred to the rate of development of these machines. This, too, is of enormous significance. We are used to making our judgments over ten years or five years, but I have a document from the United States in which the president of one of the foremost computer companies says that a modern computer is for all practical purposes only about eight years old, and that in that brief time there have been four generations of machines, each more than doubling the operating capacity of its predecessor and doubling operations per dollar produced by its predecessor and, moreover, that that is far from being the ultimate limit.
I have recent figures to suggest that in the next two or three years the cost per unit of these vast new machines will be reducing by an order of ten, so that in three years' time they will be ten times as efficient as they are now and ten times as cheap as now.
This brings me to a fundamental point, not a political concept yet, although it may become so once the House and the nation appreciate the nature of the revolution which is waiting round the corner. We are facing a major balance of payments situation. If we were to look ten years ahead to the largest single contribution to our balance of payments which could be made, we would see that it could be made by a concentrated emphasis on the installed computer capacity in British industry. In this more than in almost anything else which has been discussed in the House in the last few weeks will probably lie the key to British industrial advancement and the surge of industrial energy which we require to get out of the slough of despond in which we now find ourselves.
How does it effect the House? I recently had the privilege of lunching with the director of the new French administrative staff college. He told me that there were only three criteria in which he and his colleagues were really interested when recruiting people for this staff college. This is being done all over Europe. The three criteria were simply that pupils must have a knowledge of mathematics, a knowledge of


economics and a knowledge of foreign languages. Apart from that, he did not mind whether they were scientists or classicists or what their education had been. These were the fundamental requirements.
If we in the House of Commons are to enter a period of real time economic management of the nation, which is certainly feasible and possible, and if we are to have a battery of large-scale great power computers throwing up on a screen in this building movements in national income and expenditure not for last week or last month or last year, but for today, during the last hour, if we are to have machines throwing up the amount of Customs revenue not for last month or last year, but for last week and today, then we will have to acquire a very much more sophisticated approach to the problems of Government and the problems of the real time management of the economy. The degree of control which many members of the Government would like to have over the economy and which they certainly do not have at the moment would be vastly enhanced, and the sooner we recognise that this is coming and that it will be possible, the better qualified we in the House will be to conduct the government of the nation.
In our approach to the balance of payments problem, there has been a great deal of controversy about whether investment in the public sector or the private sector should be more radically pruned. This is almost irrelevant. What we should now consider is the relationship of the investment in the private and public sectors to the rates at which that investment will pay off in national terms. This is all that counts. To bring myself back to the subject of computers; here is undoubtedly one instrument of power in which a massive investment, private or public, would yield a massive national dividend. We need to look at more matters of this kind and to apply this criterion to this question of investment.
We need big computers. While it may have been true in the First World War that God was on the side of the big battalions, today he is on the side of the big computers. I read somewhere that there was very little difference between the carelessness of drivers of 40

years ago and the carelessness of drivers today and that the only difference was that horses 40 years ago had more sense. If I may transpose that into the terms which we have been discussing, there is very little difference in human competence 40 years ago and human competence in Government today, but there is a vast difference in the tools at our disposal and a particularly vast difference if only we would recognise that this is not merely an instrument to speed the national payroll or keep the national inventories, but an instrument which will enable us as we have never been able before to look at the problems of the nation. With these new machines we can simulate these problems on a vast scale.
I have not seen any reference to this process of simulation in the Report. I hope that it is being carried out. I know that it is being carried out in Cambridge and possibly elsewhere, but it should certainly be done by the Treasury and the major organs of Government. If we start this process, the ambitious horizons which the electorate are imposing on the Government and which some members of the Government are encouraging the electorate to believe are technically possible, will then, and only then, be attainable. They will not be attainable if we carry on as we are.

5.31 p.m.

Dr. Jeremy Bray: I will not follow the line of thought of the hon. Member for Portsmouth, Langstone (Mr. Ian Lloyd) in his interesting speech. However, I cannot resist quoting one remark by Mr. W. W. Morton, Third Secretary to the Treasury, who, when writing in the "Journal of Public Administration" a year or two ago, said:
The introduction of automatic data processing to the public service has been something of a success story.
There may be some dispute about that, but Mr. Morton went on:
To most of us ordinary public servants there is something basically improbable about machines which can beat the pace of the human mind by reducing everything to the measure of plus or minus one".
That is the kind of remark which drives the technical man up the wall. To suppose that this degree of Philistinian, deliberately cultivated amateurism, is appropriate in the Treasury is absolute


nonsense. There is a small computer, not even in the Treasury but in the Central Statistical Office, which Treasury officials use. Or they put the calculations in the post to Roehampton where a computer used in agricultural research gives them the answer after about a fortnight. This is the cycle and pace of economic forecasting. There is no room for complacency at all.
Turning to the Estimate Committee's Report, I should like to add my support to certain things which have already been said. On Recommendation 4, which my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) pointed out was hardly even defended by the Treasury, it is very difficult to justify a flat rate percentage margin to cover the exigencies of the Foreign Service. One wonders whether the Home Civil Service could have got away with even a 1½ per cent. margin to cover the needs of training, for example, which is plausible. This is something which seems to be best considered on an ad hoc basis whenever a special knowledge of languages or of abstruse studies is needed by the Foreign Service.
On Recommendation 10, which deals with the need for movement in and out of industry, again I feel that more than pious aspirations are needed. There are certainly difficulties, but movement is taking place. It is a pity if the Treasury is not sympathetic to this point of view to quite a considerable extent. This year, six principals have been recruited at a later age and two assistant secretaries are in process of being recruited. The numbers needed at both levels, and possibly higher levels, allow for a very much greater increase in these figures in future years.
Obviously if the level of salary is correctly geared it is possible to bring extremely good people into the public service and not people who have come to a dead end or who are frustrated and possibly not the best employees from other fields. It should not be a second-best entry. It is 20 years since we had the influx of outside civil servants during the war. It would be no bad thing if there were another influx at the same spread of levels as there was then. I am sure that those in the administrative grades of the Civil Service who are looking forward to more fresh air and

opportunity would not find their own career prospects damaged by such an influx.
Having criticised the Treasury to some extent, I join in the unease which has been expressed by the Treasury about something which the Estimates Committee said on the working relationships between the Treasury and the Department. The Committee wanted very strongly to emphasise the position of the Treasury as the instrument of Parliament in supervising Departments. The Treasury, in evidence, reminded the Committee of the Plowden Committee's recommendations about joint working between the Treasury and the Departments. This was genuinely joint working. Yet the Committee says Treasury control cannot possibly take place on the basis of equality.
It would be a mistake for the House to undermine the principles of the Plow-den Report and the divisions of responsibility between the Treasury and the Department. In particular, it would be a pity for the House to build up the Treasury and the responsibility of the Treasury to a level higher than the present one. Too often in Departments it is argued that the Public Accounts Committee or the Estimates Committee would not stand for something when what is being argued is that the Department will not stand for something from the Minister. This House is sometimes used in a way in which it would not wish to be used. We should not lend ourselves to the kind of attitude by what we write in reports of Parliamentary Committees.
Turning to the relative powers of the Treasury and other Departments, the Plowden Report casts grave doubt on the method of control of public expenditure which was exercised before it started work and, indeed, before the Report of the Estimates Committee on Treasury Control of Expenditure, which was the major Report preceding this Report on the Treasury Control of Establishments. The Plowden Committee argued:
The bulk of expenditure cannot effectively be controlled by a system of annual estimates alone".
If public expenditure cannot be controlled by annual estimates alone, and if we need five-year reviews and the authorisation of commitments, is it not proper that Parliament should be


involved in authorising those commitments? Yet any possibility of Parliamentary control or Parliamentary review was rejected by the Plowden Committee. Specifically it was argued that it would be impossible to work efficiently any system of Parliamentary control of commitments which went beyond what is already implied in the present processes of supply and demand. In other words, Parliament is to be left with machinery which the Plowden Committee rejects as impracticable for the control of ordinary Government business.
I do not think that the House should accept this position. We should examine whether we can institute some form of review of commitments to spend as distinct from merely a review of the annual estimates.
To do this would mean a much closer contact with Departments over a wider range of their business than Parliamentary Committees are at present able to secure. It would also mean having the framework of total commitments for the future clearly before Parliament, as they were published by the last Government in the White Paper on Public Expenditure up to 1968.
It is interesting that although that White Paper was published, it was never debated and it still has not been debated. Indeed, its contents were surprisingly little known to hon. Members, on both sides. It was only at the height of the General Election campaign that it became evident that hon. Members opposite had committed themselves to a rate of increase in the real level of pensions which stood at the rate of 2s. 4½d. a week per year on the basic level of the pension. This is a good propaganda point, which we on this side did not pick up until far later than the publication of the Report. I suspect that the political reason why we did not debate that White Paper was because hon. Members opposite were afraid of being challenged on how they would meet this enormous volume of expenditure and we on our side were afraid of being challenged to produce the levels of expenditure implicit in our own programme.
But that is not altogether the best way in which to behave and when an opportunity is offered, however unwittingly, by a Government to debate the serious long-term review of public expenditure, it should be seized by this House and we

should have that debate. I do not know quite how, whether it could be taken at the instigation of either the Government Front Bench or the Opposition Front Bench, but it could have been taken, possibly, even in a long Adjournment debate at some stage during the Session raised on the initiative of a Private Member.

Sir Edward Boyle: Surely, it would have been extraordinarily difficult in one debate to have covered the whole range of topics contained in that White Paper. If one takes the sole topic of education, which I mention because I was responsible for that paragraph in the White Paper, every particular aspect of education which is listed—that is to say, for example, the commitment to go on raising standards of school education, the commitment to work towards the raising of the school-leaving age in 1970, the implementation of the Robbins Report, and so on—had been debated in the last year of the last Parliament. It would not be right to suggest that we had not debated the policy indicated in those forward commitments.

Dr. Bray: I entirely accept what the right hon. Gentleman says about the individual items in the White Paper. What was interesting about the White Paper, however, was that it brought together the proposals as a whole and enabled us to see the balance of expenditure in different areas.
The final allocation decision of the Government has to be taken in view of the total and its distribution between different items. This has never been debated by Parliament. The ultimate decisions and control of expenditure have never come under our review. I therefore think it entirely wrong if the Estimates Committee and this House persist in a charade of maintaining that we are reviewing expenditure when this is not the case. It is largely up to individual Members to carry forward the machinery for the review of expenditure and, no doubt, this is a process which will go on in the course of the years ahead.

Sir E. Errington: The hon. Member appreciates, does he not, that what we are now discussing is the question of establishment and management?


Expenditure is an entirely different matter.

Dr. Bray: I appreciate that, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for bringing me back to the point.
Since the publication of the Report which we are today debating, there has been a major reorganisation in the Treasury and it would be a mistake to suppose that Treasury control of establishments is now in quite the same position that it was. A large part of what was formerly solely the responsibility of the Treasury has been transferred to the new Department of Economic Affairs.
To get this into perspective, however, it is interesting to look at the establishment position in the Treasury itself. We see the two sides of the Treasury, and we can estimate roughly the size of the pay and management side by looking at the number of administrative class members in the separate divisions of the Treasury. In pay, there are 22 administrative class civil servants and in management 23, making a total on the pay and management side of 45. That compares with, on the financial and economic side, 48 in the public sector area alone, 21, including economists, in the national economy and economy section and 46 in the finance section. That means that the total pay and management staff of the Treasury is equal to roughly the same size as any one of the three major parts of the financial and economic side; so that it is very much the smaller part. On the financial and economic side, it seems from what I can gather that it is really only the national economy divisions which have been affected by the setting up of the Department of Economic Affairs and that the transfer of staff from there has been relatively small. Thus we have still very much the same balance in the Treasury as there was before the setting up of the new Department of Economic Affairs.
What one asks is whether, in the control of establishments, this is really the best way of organising things. Is it good to associate the financial and economic influence of the Treasury with the question of administering the personnel policy of the Civil Service? This is not a link which springs instantly to mind in any other organisation or firm as the obvious

link to make. One does not always put one's accounts department and one's personnel department under the same wing. Why especially accounts and personnel? It seems a somewhat arbitrary grouping. However, never mind. We are a somewhat arbitrary country in many ways.
What are the merits of this arrangement? The criticism that somebody who is expert in, say, establishments in the Treasury is next day liable to find himself in charge of an important aspect of economic affairs is unfounded. There is, of course, a great deal of specialisation in the Treasury and the movement of staff between one job and another in the Treasury need be no more mishandled than the movement of a person expert in housing to looking after, say, the Colonies or any other movement in the Civil Service.
One asks whether there is a proper discharge of the personnel policies under the influence of the Treasury, and one has to question very much whether there is. As my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West said, the question of recruitment to the Civil Service is under review by an Estimates Sub-Committee, and I would not wish to anticipate anything that the Estimates Committee may say on this matter. When, however, one looks at the general standing and morale of the Civil Service today, one feels that there are personnel questions which, while personnel is linked with finance, will not be properly sorted out.
I give just one example, that of advertising. The public service is subjected to more "knocking" advertisements than any other body of men. They have no come-back whatever. No private enterprise would stand for advertisements saying that it was inefficient at running a proposed new service and that it was subject to the limitations and difficulties of bureaucracy in a way somewhat unique to itself.
The public service as a service needs fighting for, and the management of the careers of civil servants needs the same careful fostering that in many ways it already gets in the Civil Service but which is not seen as a whole. The suggestion has been made by a Fabian Society group, in a pamphlet called "The Administrators", of grouping all the personnel responsibilities in the Civil Service together under a much strengthened


Civil Service Commission, thus setting the Treasury free to concentrate solely on the financial and economic side.
Today we are concerned mainly with the control of establishments, and therefore the personnel side, and thus what we should be considering is whether such a reorganisation, more fundamental than any proposed by the Estimates Committee, would be desirable. In a situation where the public service was a much sought after occupation, offering security, dignity and pay above the level which could be obtained elsewhere, clearly a form of organisation which treats it as a jealously guarded privilege to which no corrupt person or the friend of a corrupt person should be admitted, is the right one.
But this is not the position today. It is not a matter of many corrupt people hanging around trying to get into the Civil Service or trying to get their friends into positions of privilege and power. In any case, in so far as this is true, it now happens by a process of temporary appointment to public service, which is a very frequent occurrence, often to posts of great responsibility in the public service, and under no very close control.
This is not a danger, because there is not this overwhelming pressure for privilege, this tendency to corruption, which caused the reform of the Civil Service in the middle of the nineteenth century. In a situation where we are able to relax and see the public servant as a man with a career needing to be looked at in the whole of his life, it is surely better to have a Department concerned just with this aspect of the public service. Clearly the precise organisation of any rearrangement of personnel matters would involve a great deal of consultation with the staff side, the National Whitley Council, and so on, and it would not be appropriate for Parliament to suggest just how this should be worked out; but I am convinced that something needs to be done.
Finally, if I may look at the wider setting of the Treasury control of establishments, I think that one has to ask whether the question to which the Treasury is now subject, with the creation of this new Department, is so temporary that one can maintain the status quo, or is there in

this new Department something permanent in British Government? This is not merely a political question. It is a matter of good organisation of administration.
The justification for the Department of Economic Affairs has been, and, before the election, was largely campaigned for from this side of the House, on what I think are mistaken grounds, on the mistaken grounds that it was supposed that the Treasury was restrictionist, and that the only way to get an expansionist view in the Government was to create the new Department. I do not accept this.
Another view which has been put forward is that while the Treasury should concentrate on financial matters in the short term, we need another Department to look at the real factors in the economy, at particular industries, at manpower, and so on, and at the longer-term questions, with the Treasury being financially concerned with the long-term and financial aspects of the economic affairs of the country. I do not think that this gets to the nub of the problem.
As I see it, the more fundamental division is between the responsibility of the Treasury to look at national aggregates, at total national activities, whether they be long or short, real or financial, and for there to be another Department which looks at the disaggregated picture, at the picture within particular regions and industries. On this basis there is a genuine division of function which needs to find departmental expression.
I therefore submit that the rôle of the Treasury will change a good deal in the future. At present we do not have the final picture because the Department of Economic Affairs, being a new Department, has not had time to build up its personnel, or, still more, its standing as a Department in Whitehall. I very much hope that there will not be—there is not today—any kind of war between the Treasury and the new Department, but there will certainly be a need to adjust and to adapt. I hope, therefore, that in its thinking in the future the Treasury will consider whether, in the changing pattern of its responsibilities, it will be able to fulfil its rôle more efficiently if it sheds personnel responsibility to an independent and much strengthened Civil Service Commission.

5.56 p.m.

Mr. William Clark: I, too, should like to commence by paying tribute to this Sub-Committee, and particularly to my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir E. Errington) who, throughout the whole of the Committee's considerations, did a tremendous amount of work. The Report covers the period from December, 1963, to March, 1964, and I think that one should pay tribute also to the other Members of the Committee who did such a lot of work. On reading the evidence submitted with the Report, one is led to the conclusion that in between meetings a tremendous amount of homework was being done, and that my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot certainly did a lot of that homework. The House should be grateful to the Committee, to its Chairman, to its Members, and to the witnesses who gave frank advice and information to the Committee.
As has been said, this is an extremely important Report. The question really is, how does one control so much manpower? It really is big business. It amounts to the control of an empire. Page 14 of the Report shows that in 1963 there were about 412,000 non-industrial staff, and 263,000 industrial staff. These figures exclude the Post Office which, incidentally, according to the latest figures that I have been able to get, employs about 370,000 people of all grades.
Page 3 of the Report shows that in 1963–64 it cost the taxpayer £670 million to employ the non-industrial and industrial staff to which I have just referred, and when one considers the number of staff involved and the cost of that staff one realises that this is a matter of considerable importance. I shall be corrected by the Financial Secretary if I am wrong, but I think that this is the first time that the control of establishments has ever been debated. My researches show that nobody has ever debated it, although it has been spoken of, and in July, 1958, for example, it was decided to set up what was eventually known as the Plowden Committee which reported in July, 1961.
One of the most important paragraphs in the Plowden Report is paragraph 80, which deals with establishments. It says:

The Treasury will always have a special position vis-à-vis the Committee of Public Accounts and the Committee on Estimates, but its ability to give independent advice and comment to the Committees on detailed points has declined in the last generation and is likely to decline further.
If one reads that, and, at the same time, the evidence of Sir Laurence Helsby, who says:
It is increasingly the case, I think, that the Civil Service is to be regarded in these matters as a coherent whole. It is not just a matter of the Treasury having a kind of private argument with a series of individual Departments,
one appreciates the position of the Treasury on the question of establishments.
There is no question but that there has been a loosening of the grip of Treasury control. I am not saying that this is a bad thing, but if the grip is loosened it must be replaced by some effective method of control, and it is this method of control that the Committee was investigating. It is interesting to note that the personnel controlling this empire totals only 273. This is in addition to the staff within the Departments which also does the staff inspections, and the rest. The Committee investigated this problem very thoroughly and made some very important recommendations. Hon. Members have mentioned some of these, and I do not intend to go through them all. Many have been accepted, and even those which have not could be said to have been half accepted. The Treasury will probably do something about them.
My hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot said that Recommendation 1 was something that no controlling Department should have to put up with. That is the recommendation that returns of manpower, if they are due in by 30th October or 30th April, should be in on time. There should be no question of a Department making excuses. I am delighted that the Treasury has accepted this. It is essential that the Treasury should know what is happening in Departments which have delegated authority. What struck me about the Report was the apparently loose arrangement on the question of who is carrying out what inspection. It would be easier to have a programme which ensured overall coverage. I am not suggesting that the Treasury should do this, but it


is obviously the best suited Department. It should be able to ensure that there is overall coverage when several inspections and investigations are going on.
Paragraph 18 of the Report says:
a Treasury witness admitted 'the example you happened to quote, the Ministry of Transport, is quite a fair one … it is a Department which in those two years at any rate has been looked at rather less than the others'.
I would have thought that we would not need a Select Committee or a Sub-Committee to ascertain that if someone in the Civil Service knew where all the investigations and inspections were going on. If that system were in operation somebody would be able to say, "We have not had an inspection there", and we could create a master plan.
In the case of a Departmental staff inspection in relation to a Department with delegated authority—as is the case with many Departments—a list of recommendations should be given. The situation would then be satisfactory in the case of recommendations which were accepted, and in the case of those which were rejected it might be a good idea for the Treasury to take the matter to a higher level if the recommendations had any substance. But without a master plan to cover staff inspections we shall be inclined to fall between two stools, with each one thinking the other is doing something. As the Report points out, we must avoid too many reports and too many trivialities.
An interesting suggestion is contained in paragraph 21, to which nobody has yet referred. It was not made the subject of any recommendation, but the Committee suggested that it might be a good idea to inquire into the Diplomatic Service. This would presumably mean that the Select Committee would have to travel abroad. I do not want to make a party point of this, but I would not have thought that the Government could afford to send Members abroad in view of their narrow majority. Nevertheless, there should be an investigation into the Diplomatic Service. There is a difference of opinion between a 7½ per cent. reserve and a 10 per cent. reserve in the Service. I am glad that the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) shares this concern, because there may be a lack of control in this direction.
Replying to a witness's question my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot said:
I do not know whether my colleagues share my view, but I am frightened that this might spread. We were looking at these Estimates, as one does, and one is a little bit frightened when the thing goes past any real control.
That is the fear in the minds of my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot and the hon. Member for Fife, West. I hope that the Financial Secretary will elaborate a little more than he has done his answers to the recommendations.
The question of the unification of the Defence Services has also been raised. Like the Select Committee, I think that there should not be any different method or any special treatment in the matter of control. The Ministry of Defence is our largest spending Department, and it employs many people. I would have thought that it should not have special treatment, but that there should be control. Reference has been made to the fact that there has been an increase of staff in the Ministry of Defence. I was puzzled by paragraph 27 of the Report, which says:
There is thus an increase of 312 staff.
We know that that has been reduced to 70.
The Treasury sought to justify this as a temporary increase which they 'accept very reluctantly'"—
it is all right, so far—
and that in about two years 'we might even hope to get some saving'".
I would have thought that although it was not possible immediately to cut the staff, with the unification of the Defence Services the Treasury could use a much more definite phrase than
we might even hope to get some saving".
The idea of the unification of the Defence Services was not only to achieve more co-operation between the three Services; it was also to save manpower. I hope that the Financial Secretary will deal with that point.
Then there is the question of scientists. Many hon. Members have pointed out the importance of scientific brains in the Civil Service. It is most important that scientists should have contact with their counterparts in industry. I would have thought that there should be more and more liaison between Civil Service scientists and industrial scientists. In the Minutes of Evidence


my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-East (Mr. Hopkins) said:
There may well be scope for certain loans of that kind. It is certainly not being done on an appreciable scale.
That referred to loans from industry to the Civil Service and vice versa.
Exactly the same thing applies to statisticians. In the Report we came out fairly well regarding statisticians, who are in short supply—if I may put it in that way. The House will agree that any Government if they are to be efficient—I am not now arguing about the policies they adopt-must have an efficient statistical department. Governments take decisions on trends and figures, and it is essential that the figures should be up to date. It is no use looking at last year's fixture list when filling in this year's football pool coupon. This is sometimes the impression one obtains, and we might look to see that statisticians get more priority.
Organisation and method has been spoken about. In a matter of this magnitude O. & M. is extremely important. I may have got a wrong impression, but from reading the Report I do not think that O. & M. has had the emphasis it should have had. The training for O. & M. appeared a little scrappy. We may be able to call on industry in this respect for exchanges of O. & M. personnel. Anyone who has anything to do with organisation and method would agree that if one is doing O. & M. work day after day in the same sort of Department, or investigating the same sort of job, one comes not to see the wood for the trees, and outside experience is extremely valuable. We must not become too engrossed with O. & M. when doing the same job day after day, and interchanges with industry might be helpful.
I could not discover from reading the Report—perhaps the Financial Secretary may be able to help me—how O. & M. is checked within a Department. We read in the report that O. & M., and in some cases work studies, are held in Departments and certain recommendations are made. I should like to know how much money has been saved by some of these investigations. This did not come out in the Report. It would be a good idea to have a master plan of the units of O. & M. and what jobs or Departments are being investigated. The

Treasury would know what its own O. & M. personnel were doing but it would not always know what the O. & M. personnel in other Departments were doing. It is necessary to have a master plan of what is going on.
One thing which emerged—and it was said by a witness—was that it is impossible for the Civil Service—we are talking now about non-industrial staff—to get any sort of comparison between offices. Many hon. Members work in offices and some may run offices. One of the easiest, simplest and probably the most naive way of working out whether or not an office is efficient is to work out the cost of typing and posting a letter. It is extraordinary how one can get some extremely interesting information in that way particularly if it is done occasionally during the year. Something like that might be done and different offices compared. I return to the fact that a programme and master plan is essential for staff inspections and O. & M. investigations.
With staff inspections and O. & M. certain recommendations are made, and I should like to be assured that someone sees those recommendations. I should like there to be a second opinion on the recommendations which are rejected. That might give a little more efficiency. I agree with my hon. Friend, who made a very interesting speech about computers, that we need more machinery and more computers in the Civil Service. I have never been able to understand why we cannot centralise some Government work which could be done by machinery. I am thinking, for example, of P.A.Y.E. calculations. The work in connection with road licences could be centralised, and B.B.C. licences as well if that is dealt with by the Government. Pensions could be dealt with by centralisation.
Another thing which I should like to know—perhaps the Financial Secretary can provide the answer to the first part-is how many computers are being used in the Civil Service and how many staff have been saved. My hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot drew attention to the fact that little was said about the industrial staff, which amounts to 263,000. I should have thought that work studies and O. & M. would be an absolute "must" for this section. My hon. Friend asked about value engineering and value analysis.


These are important factors on the industrial side of the Civil Service. It did not come out in the evidence, and I wonder how many cost accountants there are on the industrial side of the Civil Service.
Throughout the Report the Treasury is paramount. In paragraph 9 it states:
Your Committee have certain criticisms to make in detail, but they are more than satisfied that the Treasury must take the lead in bringing good management to the Civil Service".
I do not think anybody would disagree with that. The hon. Member for Middles-brough, West (Dr. Bray) raised the question—not in the same way as I now propose to—of the Department of Economic Affairs and where this new Ministry fits in. If we accept the fact that the Treasury is paramount regarding Civil Service training, establishment and the rest of it, where does the Department of Economic Affairs come in? The House realises that staff recruitment could be delegated to senior executives, but the Treasury has always reserved the right to appoint senior executives. In view of the rather—I put it no higher than this—touchy relationship between the Treasury and the Department of Economic Affairs, it would be interesting to know whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer approved the higher executive appointments in the Department of Economic Affairs. It states in paragraph 16 of the Report:
Although your Committee have recommended increases of delegated authority for certain grades and classes, they are convinced that the Treasury should retain responsibility for approval of the higher posts.
I hope that the Financial Secretary will be able to give an answer.
Throughout the Report there is the question of nationality scrutiny and so on. Perhaps the next Report that we get on Treasury control of establishments will pay particular attention to the Department of Economic Affairs, if it is still in existence—or it may have by then taken over the Treasury. The future training of staff is essential and everyone would agree that the Centre of Administrative Studies is absolutely first-class. It seemed to be one of the regrets of the Committee that this could not be extended. There is a great scope for a staff college. There are great opportunities for expanding the work of this machinery.
We need to improve the Civil Service, and that is where there is a great dis-

crepancy, to my mind, in interdepartmental transfers. I do not mean having a person for one year and then moving him on, but it is interesting to note the transfers between Departments which are given on page 166. It can be seen there that of 29 permanent secretaries seven had served in other Departments, of 67 deputy secretaries nine had, and so one could go down the list. The percentages are interesting. Of the permanent secretaries, 25 per cent. had served in other Departments and 12½ per cent. of the deputy secretaries had done so. When one gets to under-secretaries, assistant secretaries and principals the proportion is about 4 per cent. I have thought that something could be done here to ensure that more under-secretaries, assistant secretaries and principals serve in more than one Department.

Dr. Bray: Would the hon. Member tell the House how he reconciles the desirability of greater mobility with what I am sure he also has in mind—greater expertness? Are these not, in some sense, conflicting objectives?

Mr. Clark: If we want to get an overall picture of the Civil Service, what we have to remember is that—if I might put it coldly—if I go into the Civil Service today in Department A and stay there for the rest of my life until I retire I do not think that I would be as good as if I had gone into Department A for six or seven years and then transferred to Department B. There should be more transfer between Departments. Talking about leaving the Civil Service, a question to which the Committee drew attention was that of the possible retirement age of 50. This is too low for retirement, because most people are at their peak between 45 and 55.
I should like to ask the Financial Secretary whether we are losing too many of our unestablished Civil Servants. One thing which I could not understand in the Report was the fact that documentation of the established staff is centralised, but documentation of the unestablished staff is done, presumably, in the Departments. Of course, one does not want a huge amount of documentation for a typist who stays in the Civil Service for only six or nine months, but most people who go into the Civil Service and who are non-industrial staff invariably tend to stay


there for some years. I should have thought that documentation in this field is so easy—if one uses a machine it is child's play—that one should keep documentation of not only the established but the unestablished staff.
While I am speaking about unestablished and established staff, I wonder how many jobs are duplicated when we are doing staff inspections, in whichever Department it may be. It is the fear, not only of us in the House, but of people outside, that too many people have duplicated jobs. By that I mean that one could have a man in Department A producing figures for some form or other and, in Department B miles away, another person doing precisely the same job. I should have thought that, in the control of establishments, it would not be a bad exercise to look into the question of co-ordination of forms, not only to relieve the public of many of these forms, some of which are duplicated, but to cut down the number of interdepartmental forms. I am sure that the Financial Secretary would agree that on many occasions a Department form goes from one Department to another when there is a common piece of information on each form. It needs only a little ingenuity to reduce the number. I do not know how many forms there are in the Government service and perhaps it would be unfair to ask the Financial Secretary to produce that figure, but whatever it is I am certain that it could be scaled down.
The Committee has done a first class job of work by producing this Report. I think that it shows the Civil Service to be a great career and an efficient service, but the Treasury control—which is what we are really talking about—must have only one ideal, and that is efficiency. By efficiency one means that we do not want any unnecessary work done which could be cut out. Can we in fact save manpower in the Civil Service by being more efficient?
We are talking only about the Civil Service here, but with the spending which any Government must do, with the block grant to local authorities and with little Parliamentary control over local authorities, I put it to the Financial Secretary that it might not be a bad idea to have a similar investigation into local authorities. We should remember that

just under 100,000 people work in local authority offices. If it is right to have an investigation covering 600,000 people, I should think that it would be right to have one covering 100,000. Somehow, we must cut out the facetiousness of Parkinson's Law, though it is an interesting book to read. If we could, somehow, give a reward for a cut in staff, we would have achieved something which no other country in the world has achieved.
I should like to congratulate the Committee—and I am sure that the House will agree with me—on an excellent Report. May I personally say how very much I enjoyed reading the whole of this Report, No. 228? Although it was not like a James Bond novel, over the weekend it certainly made very interesting reading.

6.28 p.m.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Niall MacDermot): I, like other hon. Members who have spoken, welcome the opportunity to debate this Report. I should like to join in the tributes which have been paid to the Committee—and, in particular, to the hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir E. Errington), who chaired the Committee—for the work which it has done. I studied this Report with interest, care and, I hope, with profit, particularly as I am, as a relative novice to the subject, charged with Departmental responsibility for it. The Report contained a considerable amount of constructive criticism about the Treasury control of establishments, but it was gratifying to the Treasury, at least, to find that the Committee found no fundamental fault with the Treasury's methods of exercising that control. Nor did the Committee challenge—indeed, it endorsed—the doctrine that detailed responsibility must rest with the Departments, subject to certain exceptions, and with the Treasury's rôle and responsibility being one of guidance and of supervision.
This particular principle, as the hon. Member for Aldershot reminded us, was laid down in the circular in 1949, which resulted in a considerable change in what had gone before. It resulted in much greater delegation of authority to Departments. The Committee reaffirmed this principle and itself recommended greater


delegation in its second recommendation. That is one which we have accepted, and already, in part, implemented. It is obviously a very nice question, calling for considerable tact, as to how exactly the Treasury is to exercise its responsibility of supervision and control over other Departments. It is the old problem that one does not want too much domination from the centre.
One wants to encourage a sense of responsibility among the Departments themselves but the Treasury is very conscious that it owes a responsibility to this House for seeing that there is adequate supervision over the work of the Departments. The scale of the problem is such that obviously the more that can be achieved in the spirit of partnership the better. We take the point that in a partnership there are senior partners as well as junior partners, but I do not think that it would be helpful or useful for me to try to discourse further upon that problem.
As the House knows from the Treasury observations published on the Report, the Treasury have accepted all, or nearly all, the recommendations, in some cases subject to qualifications. As is apparent from the many questions which I have been asked, the House would like a brief progress report on the stage which has been reached in relation to the various recommendations. I hope to be able to answer quite a number of the many questions which have been put to me. If I fail to answer questions, let me confess that in some cases it will be because I do not know the answer and in other cases it will be because I have simply overlooked answering them. If there are any in either category which hon. Members would like answered, I hope that they will get in touch with me after the debate. I shall be glad to see that their questions are answered. We in the Treasury welcome interest by hon. Members in our responsibilities in these matters and are very anxious to answer any questions.
May I also issue a general invitation to any hon. Member who would he interested by stating that I shall be glad to arrange either interviews with particular officials or visits to any establishments or Departments which they think would help them to get a better grasp of these

matters. I paid a visit to the Centre for Administrative Studies and found it most rewarding. I am sure that most other hon. Members would find it interesting.
May I deal with the recommendations in turn? The first recommendation was that the April review of manpower should be abolished and that Departments should be required to submit their October returns in regular sequence. The first part of that recommendation has been accepted subject to the qualification that there are some half-a-dozen manpower ceilings which we find it necessary to continue to fix on a six-monthly basis. That is because they are Departments which are either subject to large fluctuations—for example, the Ministry of Labour, due to changes in the level of employment—or are subject to a steady and substantial growth or contraction.
On the second point, I can give the assurance for which the hon. Member for Aldershot asked—that there is now provision for a regular sequence in the October returns; instead of one closing date at the end of October, there are three—the end of October, mid-November and the end of November. Each Department knows precisely by which date it must get in its returns and we shall see to it that this is done.
The second recommendation suggested that there should be an inter-departmental committee to review arrangements for delegated authority. As stated in the observation, that review has been undertaken. It has been completed, and the level of delegation has been raised in a large number of cases. The amount varies according to the circumstances of the particular Department. I believe that the Departments themselves are generally well satisfied with the level of delegation, and, of course, the Treasury's control over the higher posts and over total numbers is maintained.
While I am on the point, may I reply to the hon. Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. William Clark). It is not a responsibility of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to authorise the most senior posts. This is done by heads of Departments, and in some cases by the Prime Minister on the advice of the head of the Civil Service.
The hon. Member for Aldershot asked for some more details of the amount of delegation. The position is that for second-tier Departments, those which have an


Assistant Secretary substantially full time on establishment work, the level for the general classes has been raised to that of senior executive officer. In effect, this is only one step below the maximum level allowed for the major Departments, and in some cases this has resulted in an increase by two steps in the level of delegation. In the smaller Departments it varies greatly, but significant changes have been made and the position has been reached that there is at least some measure of delegated authority for all, even for the smallest Department. In the specialist classes, the Departments have been given an increase in delegated authority but generally within the limits set for the general classes.
The third recommendation was that there should be a regular, systematic examination by the Establishments (Complementing) Division every three to five years. We very substantially accepted that recommendation. The inspection programmes are being carried out, and the progress will be reviewed in the summer. I think that this meets the hon. Member's point about a master plan. In some cases, as was made clear in the Treasury observations, it will be sufficient for the inspection to be of representative sections of establishments, where Departments have many different establishments over different parts of the country performing the same, or roughly the same, functions. It is obviously necessary to preserve some flexibility in this matter so that we may concentrate on the areas in greatest need. Forf example, there is obviously a particular responsibility in respect of the newly-formed Departments.
The hon. Member for Aldershot asked what addition there had been to this Division. The answer is that previously there were four sections to it and that a fifth section had been added. I think that that gives some indication of the measure of the increase in strength.
The fourth recommendation objected to the proposal to allow the Diplomatic Service a fixed percentage of reserve manpower. That is a subject on which, naturally, a number of hon. Members have spoken, because it is one of the points in the Committee's recommendations which we were not able to accept. The Committee obviously feared that this new system would lead to extravagance and to some lack of Treasury control.

As was explained to the Committee, for a long time there has been a reserve of manpower in the Foreign Service, and in the Commonwealth Service which has now been amalgamated in the Diplomatic Service. This reserve was to cover the special problems which those services have in providing for their requirements for travel, for training and for leave.
Obviously, while someone of the Foreign Service is coming home or is leaving his post for any of these purposes, and someone else is filling his place, two men cannot be carried on the same establishment, and someone has to be carried somewhere else. Since it is a fluctuating need, and no one can predict at any given moment exactly who will be required where in six months' time, one can do it only by a reserve pool. The old pre-Plowden system was that annually there would be negotiations and bargaining between the Treasury and the Foreign Office to try to establish what was the right level and to estimate for the future the right level for this reserve pool. As the Plowden Committee found, the result of that method was that the Foreign Service was being squeezed too hard by the Treasury. It made out a very powerful case that it needed a larger reserve.
I was asked how the figure of 10 per cent. was arrived at by the Plowden Committee. As far as I can make out, it is because the Committee accepted the requirement which the Foreign Office suggested at that time it needed, which was, I believe, about 400 in relation to a total establishment of about 4,000, which gave the 10 per cent. proportion. In any event, the Plowden Committee recommended that this was a matter which could be dealt with by finding the right percentage which was required for the reserve pool compared with the total size of the Service, and it suggested 10 per cent.
The Treasury felt that as the procedure which it had been adopting before had not proved satisfactory in practice, and since the Committee had put forward a recommendation for this system, it should be attempted and a trial should be given to it. The Treasury, however, did not accept the 10 per cent. limit suggested by the Plowden Committee. It felt that it was too high. The Plowden Committee itself suggested that the increase should be gradual—and we agree about that—and the position now is that the Treasury


has agreed to a target of 7½ per cent. for this margin, as it is called— although I have referred to it as a "reserve pool".
It is being built up gradually and as far as I can make out slow progress is being made at the moment. In any event, I am assured that it is not thought that the 7½ per cent. target will be reached by the end of this calendar year.

Sir E. Errington: Would it not be possible to preserve some measure of control by arranging things on a functional basis; by realising that if holidays, courses, travel and so on are important matters, then allowances should be made in the form of estimates in order not to make a precedent of breaking away from the normal?

Mr. MacDermot: We do not intend this to be a precedent and I wish to make that perfectly clear. This is a special problem to deal with a situation which is peculiar to these overseas services. There is no question of it being applied to the home services in any form. I think that the answer to the hon. Member's question is that it would be possible, but that it would virtually mean going back to the old system. However, I wish to make it abundantly clear that there is no question of abandoning Treasury control. The Treasury will maintain control—and is doing so, in close consultation with the Foreign Office—about the build-up that is going on, and we want to try to find the right level.
The Treasury view is that it may prove that 7½ per cent. is not the right level. We are not tied to that figure and if we find, as a result of the supervision that is taking place, that a figure of less than 7½ per cent. will meet the case, the expansion will stop at that point. Equally, if the Diplomatic Service wants to go above 7½ per cent. it will have to convince the Treasury that that is justified.
In terms of numbers I think that it may be that the Committee misunderstood the total amount of the Diplomatic Service to which this provision applies. There is quite a large number of staff who will not enter into this calculation—that is, into the base figure. The 10 per cent. margin suggested by Plowden would have resulted in about 600 in the reserve pool, compared with

about 300 in total for the Foreign Office and the Commonwealth Service before the Plowden recommendations.
The 7½ per cent. would mean a reserve of about 450 which, in effect, would be an increase of about 150 in staff at an average cost of about £1,000 per person, a total of about £150,000. As I said, that has not yet been reached and the situation is being closely watched. It is not a matter which can be dealt with, as my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) rather suggested, by considering each individual case on its merits. The answer is, to sum up, that we must see how this operates, at the same time, I assure hon. Members, being mindful of our responsibilities by way of control.
Recommendation 5 was another which we were unable to accept. It was
Defence and Overseas Personnel Division should be abolished, and its present functions divided among the specialist divisions set up …
following the 1962 reorganisation. This recommendation has not been referred to at length by hon. Members today, so perhaps I can deal with it briefly.
It is not in the slightest surprising to the Treasury that the Committee was puzzled by the retention of undivided responsibility in this sphere when the 1962 reorganisation separated the functions of control, pay and establishment from those of control and supply in other spheres. The reason for it was because of special considerations which apply in the complex sphere of defence. Perhaps I can best illustrate it by some examples. The officers of the three Services are, naturally, closely integrated with the civil servants in the staffing of the Ministry of Defence headquarters. It is essential that the civilian complementing and the control of the senior Service posts should be dealt with in the same division. There then arises the problem that it is highly desirable that control of the senior Service posts should not be divided from the Treasury's general responsibilities for the size and shape of the Armed Forces. That, in turn, impinges on questions of defence policy, which are also the concern of the Defence Material Division.
We feel convinced that it is desirable that Service manpower questions should be handled in a single division which


can work in close co-operation with other divisions. There is no lack of specialisation within the Division—there are sections specialising in particular subjects—and it keeps in close contact with the specialist divisions dealing with complementing and pay generally in the Civil Service. It is not an easy system to explain or understand without seeing it working on the ground, but we feel satisfied that it is working well and that the changes suggested would be likely to sacrifice more than they would gain.
Recommendation 6 was:
A specific inquiry should be undertaken into the establishments of the reorganised Ministry of Defence … within two years.
As the hon. Member for Aldershot pointed out, that is mentioned in the White Paper, has been accepted and will be put in hand. I was asked for further figures about this matter. The 1964–65 Estimates provide for a total headquarters staff at the Ministry of Defence of about 24,200. We expect that figure to fall by 1st April next to 23,650. The majority of those will represent a true saving, but some of the posts will be those which are moved from headquarters to out-stations. We also hope that the total of the United Kingdom based non-industrial staff will show a reduction of about 2,500 by 1st April compared with last year.
In regard to the specific inquiry recommended by the Committee, we think that it would be premature to put that in hand since the new organisation has been in existence for less than a year, but we intend to hold that inquiry within the two-year period.
Recommendation 7 I can pass over; it is about the form of the Defence Estimates, to which no hon. Member has referred.
Recommendation 8 is that work study units should be set up in all Departments employing large numbers of industrial staff, and has been referred to by a number of hon. Members. The Recommendation has been implemented. All Departments which employ large numbers of industrial staff have work study units—in particular, the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Public Building and Works

is represented on the joint work study committee presided over by the Chairman of I.C.I. This is an example of the kind of co-operation going on in many spheres between the Civil Service and outside industry for the interchange of experience and information.
Recommendation 9 deals with
… steps to stimulate the recruitment of scientists by producing a better career structure …
and to encourage the transfer of scientists to the Administrative Class. This matter has been referred to by nearly every hon. Member who has spoken.
The first part of the Recommendation is still under examination, but I should like to make it clear that our reason for not yet having taken action to make changes to implement this Recommendation is not that we underestimate its importance in any way—quite the contrary. The position is that a special committee has been set up which is examining the whole structure and organisation of the scientific Civil Service. The Committee has on it a number of Government scientists, and at least two scientists from outside. Its report is expected in the spring, and it would obviously not be right to start making radical changes in the structure until we receive the report.
The Treasury welcomes the proposal for more frequent transfers of scientists to the Administrative Class. I can assure my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West that there is no question of our regarding scientists in any way as second-class civil servants. However, there is a real practical problem which springs, I think, from the fact that most young scientists are not, by and large, keen to go straight into administration. They prefer to stick to science as research workers, teachers, or whatever it may be. It is at a rather later stage of their careers that we seek to encourage those who would like to, and who have the necessary aptitude, to move into the Administrative Class.
Movement in the opposite direction is exceedingly difficult. Whereas many scientists may have great capacities for administrative work, very few people who have not been trained as scientists will be of any use in trying to undertake scientific work.
The Treasury itself, however, initiated an experiment of transferring 13 scientists to the Principal grade of the Administrative Class for a trial period. I am told that the results of the trial have been encouraging and that this special exercise may be repeated before long. This does not in any way interfere with the normal existing arrangements, to which I have referred, for promotion to the Administrative Class of more experienced people in the Scientific Class.
Recommendation 10 deals with exchanges between the Civil Service and industry. I should like to say anything I can to dispel the illusion, which I know exists, that there is some reluctance on the part of the Civil Service to facilitate those exchanges. The truth is quite to the contrary—I have myself looked into the matter with care. There are, however, considerable difficulties on both sides. Obviously, the new Department of Economic Affairs has set an unparalleled example in time of peace for the kind of co-operation that can exist, one hopes with real benefit to the nation, between people who have had Civil Service training, on the one side and, on the other, those who have had experience and training in outside industry.
Apart from what is happening in that Department, loans have been made by both the private sector and nationalised industry to the Administrative Class of the Civil Service. Exchanges have also taken place in the professional and scientific classes. These are for shorter periods and are more frequent. There were over a hundred such exchanges between 1961 and 1963. In addition, civil servants take part in many courses, dealing with management and other questions, which are attended by people from industry outside and these, again, provide many opportunities for the interchange of ideas and experience. The courses at the Centre for Administrative Studies include tuition in business methods by business men and the students visit businesses.
We are anxious to increase these interchanges whenever we can, but the difficulties on both sides are considerable. If this kind of interchange is to be valuable, one wants to get people into

fairly key positions where they can get a view of what is going on in the organisation as a whole, and not be lost in some little side department, as it were. It is not easy for industry to spare people of that kind or to provide real scope on a temporary basis for people coming from outside, but we are extremely grateful for the co-operation we have received from industry, and hope that it will continue and expand.
Recommendation 11 is that O. and M. branches of Departments should be required to submit a forward programme of their assignments, so that the Treasury could take part in them if it wanted to. That is being done. We are being supplied with information, and joint surveys are going on with a number of Departments.
Recommendation 12 is that the Organisation and Methods (General) Division should undertake planned reviews of all Departments. Again, this recommendation has been accepted. We have concentrated on those Departments which have not been reviewed for some years, and we are selecting assignments after consultation with heads of Departments, which meetings are likely to prove most fruitful. The hon. Member for Nottingham, South suggested that there should be interchanges with industry. From my own inquiries, I think that there is a very high standard in the O. and M. field in the Treasury, and very close contact with what is going on in outside industry. If the hon. Gentleman is interested to follow that up further, I am sure that we could arrange for him to be informed of what is going on.
Recommendation 13 is that the Management Services (General) Division in the Treasury should be reviewed in order to enable it to carry out a wider range of investigations. This has been done. The Division has been made more flexible. Some four more schemes have been put in hand in the last six months, and several more are in the preparatory stages. As the hon. Member for Aldershot surmised, the Division has been heavily engaged as the result of the setting up of the new Departments under the present Government. The hon. Gentleman asked what strengthening there had been to the Division. The answer is that another principal has been added to the strength of the Division.

Sir E. Errington: I am grateful to the hon. and learned Gentleman for answering so many questions. There is one outstanding matter which is of great interest, namely, the decision on the Committee's Recommendation dealing with a staff college.

Mr. MacDermot: I am coming to the staff college. I am afraid I am taking a long time. There are about three other general questions which I was asked which I have left to the end. One was about the Report of the Joint Working Party on the Whitley Council on Training. This was received in the autumn and a number of proposals which were made have been put into effect. The question of a Civil Service staff college, which was alluded to by the Committee, was raised in this Report. It will be examined further in relation to the long-term future of the Centre for Administrative Studies.
The hon. Gentleman asked what changes had been made at the Centre since the time of the Committee's inspection. The course for assistant principals has now been modified. Assistant principals now attend a three-week course on the structure of government within the first six months of their entry into the Service. Then in the third year of their service they attend a full 20-week course, the main subjects dealt with being economics, statistics, mathematical and other new techniques of administration. In addition evening lecture discussion sessions are being arranged during the winter for students who attended these first two courses so as to keep them up to date. There is no doubt—experience has shown—that these courses for the two years they have been going are well worth while and repay the fairly long absence of the students from their Departments, which was commented on by the Committee.
With regard to other courses which were suggested, it is hoped that a minor extension in this year may be for about 20 members of the principal grade of the Administrative Class to be added to the Centre's training with a six-weeks' course in economics. The Committee also suggested that there should be, perhaps, similar training for the Professional, Scientific and Technical Classes. We are not sure whether a course of a similar nature to the one which has been given

to the Administrative Class would necessarily be useful. The Working Party examined this question and suggested that there should be an induction course within six months of entry for new entrants to acquaint them with the Parliamentary and financial machine within the scope of Departments. The Working Party suggested that they should later receive management training alongside principals and senior executive grades. These recommendations are being considered.
A number of hon. Members asked questions about computers. They asked, in particular, how many computers were in use. I am not sure that all those who referred to this question realise the extent to which computers are being used in the Civil Service or, indeed, the extent to which the Civil Service can almost claim to be the pioneers in this country in the use of computers. Owing to the scale of its operations, much Civil Service work is peculiarly suited to the use of computers and, therefore, the Civil Service is merely doing what it should be doing in setting a lead.
The Committee was informed in evidence at the end of December, 1963, that there were 32 computers installed in Departments for office work, seven on order, two out to tender and a possible requirement for 21 more up to 1967. To bring those figures up to date now, at present there are 41 installed, 10 on order and a possible further requirement for 42 by 1970, including one in the Aliens Department of the Home Office, which was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin), who has explained to me that he could not be here to the end of the debate.
Hon. Members may have noted a reference in the Press recently to the fact that the Treasury has received an approach from the National Staff Side of the Whitley Council arising out of the Joint Statement of Intent.

Dr. Bray: Can my hon. and learned Friend reconcile his statement that the public service is in many ways a pioneer in the use of data processing with the fact that the Treasury does not have one computer and makes very little use of computer services?

Mr. MacDermot: My hon. Friend made some rather surprising statements during the course of his remarks. He quoted a phrase of a Treasury official


which he said tended to make him and his like climb up the wall. If some of the silent service could comment on some of my hon. Friend's remarks, they might say that they tended to make some of them climb up the wall. An enormous amount of statistics is used and worked upon by the Treasury which is compiled by computers from other Departments. For example, the Department of Customs and Excise, which was one referred to to by hon. Members opposite, already has a computer. The Department collects and processes very important statistics for the Board of Trade and the Treasury on the whole field of exports and imports. I do not think that the picture which my hon. Friend gave to the House in this respect was altogether a fair one. I shall be glad to supply my hon. Friend with further detailed information if he wishes.
I was referring to the approach we have had from the national staff side following the joint statement of intent. This was a suggestion that there should be a new drive throughout the Civil Service to remove obstacles to efficiency. This was an approach which I welcomed immediately and warmly and I am sure that the House will be glad to hear that discussions have already started following that initiative from the staff side.
I have already spoken for too long, and I am conscious that I have left many questions unanswered. I invite hon. Members to get in touch with me if they want more detailed answers.
The general subject of the debate is a very difficult one, that of finding what is the right balance of the extent of Treasury interference in other Departments in exercising its responsibilities of control. It must be a flexible system. It must involve a considerable degree of delegation. There are, as the debate has shown, many new developments coming along in mechanisation, in training, and in all aspects of personnel management.
My own impression and, I think, that of most of my colleagues in the Government is that the flexibility of the Civil Service machine and its capacity to meet challenges has been admirably demonstrated in the pressures to which it has been subjected by having a new Govern-

ment coming into office who have made considerable changes in the whole machinery of Government in Whitehall. Further, the Civil Service is put under immensely high pressure by all the reviews which take place immediately a Government come into office. No doubt this experience has also shown up weaknesses and deficiencies which can be dealt with and corrected in the future.
In any event, whatever personal impressions I or my colleagues may have formed, I know, as I said at the outset, that it has been gratifying to the Treasury to find the general line of its action and policy endorsed by the Committee's Report.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That this House takes note of the Fifth Report and of the Ninth Special Report from the Estimates Committee in the last Session of the last Parliament relating to Treasury Control of Establishments.

CHURCH OF ENGLAND (PRAYER BOOK)

7.10 p.m.

Mr. E. L. Mallalieu: I beg to move,
That the Prayer Book (Alternative and Other Services) Measure, passed by the National Assembly of the Church of England, be presented to Her Majesty for Her Royal Assent in the form in which the said Measure was laid before Parliament.
The House will doubtless be aware that the Prayer Book in use in the services of the Church of England is one which has been virtually continuously in use since 1662—for 300 years. It was an Annexe to the Act of Uniformity of that year, and it is hardly surprising that after the lapse of all those years there should be, and there has been for quite a long time, a widespread feeling that an attempt should be made to bring it more into line with modern thought and expression, and this in spite of the very real love which is felt for this Book both by reason of the words in which it is couched and also for many other reasons.
As long ago as 1906 a Royal Commission sat to study what should be done about this problem. There were many years of study, interrupted it is true by the First World War. This study resulted in the presentation to Parliament of the


Prayer Book Measure of 1928. With the wisdom of hindsight, we, and I have no doubt most churchmen, have come to realise that this presentation of a whole block reform of the Prayer Book, a package deal in one fell swoop, was perhaps a mistake. Though much of what was proposed at that time met with general acceptance, there were parts of it, and one part in particular, which aroused a great deal of feeling, as hon. Members will recollect. As a result, none of it reached the Statute Book.
There were no further proposals on this line until the Measure which is now presented to Parliament. This Measure began to go through the legislative process of the Church of England in the summer of 1962, but it was based on the Report of the Commission ten years earlier presided over by Sir Walter Moberley. The House would like to know that during the course of the passage of that legislative Measure the House of Laity asked for it by a vote no less overwhelming than 203 against 11, that the House of Clergy voted for it by a vote of 200 against one, and that the House of Bishops was unanimously in favour of it.
As most hon. Members will be aware, every clergyman on ordination, induction, and on many other occasions when he changes office in the course of his church life, has to make a declaration that he will use the services of the Book of Common Prayer
and none other except as shall be ordered by lawful authority ".
Now, as we are all well aware, there have been many deviations from that Book of 1662, deviations which have been introduced with virtually unanimous approval. For instance, the custom which obtains in many parishes of laymen reading the lesson—probably quite illegal, the service by which so many were moved in St. Paul's a few weeks ago, again probably quite illegal. Nearer at home for us, there are the services in which the children of Members of Parliament are baptised in the Crypt Chapel of the Palace of Westminster. These, too, are probably quite illegal. This Measure is an attempt to set these matters and their consequences to rights.
There are four main objects in the Measure. The first is to permit lawful experiment for a limited time in the forms of service alternative to those prescribed in the Book of Common

Prayer. The second main object is to permit forms of service to be drawn up for special occasions where none is prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer. The third object is to permit variations not of substantial importance to be made in any form of service which is prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer. The fourth and last main object is to make it absolutely clear what are the forms of service "ordered by lawful authority" than which those in the Book of Common Prayer clergymen, in the declarations which they have so frequently to make, declare that they "will use no other".
I should like to say a few words on all four of these objects. In doing so, I want particularly to show the extent to which the experimentation proposed is limited in point of time and the extent to which the permission to experiment is made conditional upon the agreement of all those who might reasonably be expected to have a major interest in the matter—the agreement of the Convocations, of the House of Laity and of all interested persons when the services concerned, in the forms approved by the Convocation in the terms of this Measure, are the services of "occasional offices" as they are called—marriage, baptism and so on. I want generally to call the attention of the House to the safeguards which exist in this Measure to see that the innovations which are introduced under it receive general consent.
First, as to the permission to experiment in forms of service alternative to those found in the Book of Common Prayer, I have mentioned the limitation in time during which these experiments may take place. The first safeguard is that they may take place only for seven years, unless there is one further extension, and one only, of a further seven years bringing it up to a possible fourteen years.

Captain L. P. S. Orr: What happens at the end of the fourteen years?

Mr. Mallalieu: I will come to that. It is a very important point. Indeed, I do not see why I should not deal with it now and help the hon. and gallant Member and perhaps others.
At the end of the period of experiment, whatever that period may be, one of two


things will happen. Either the Church will revert to the 1662 position, or the Church will ask Parliament for approval of what has taken place during the experiment.

Wing Commander Sir Eric Bullus: Not necessarily at the end of fourteen years, but perhaps before fourteen years are up.

Mr. Mallalieu: Yes; I should make plain that it would be at the end of the period of experiment, whatever that period might be, perhaps slightly less than fourteen years. Thereafter, it will either revert to 1662, or the question will come back to Parliament to have what has been shown to be generally acceptable and desirable confirmed by Parliament. There is, therefore, no question here of Parliament being asked to give up its right.
The second safeguard is that any proposal for experiment must receive a two-thirds majority of each House of Convocation in each province, and those majorities must be satisfied that the proposal is neither contrary to nor indicative of any departure from the doctrine of the Church of England.
The third safeguard is that there must be a two-thirds majority in the House of Laity. The fourth is that the parochial church council of any parish where the approved form is used must agree, and, in the case of the occasional offices, there is the right of the laymen most concerned—those who are to be married or whose children are to be baptised, for instance—to object.
The House will see that there is a provision in Clause 2 for preliminary trial of forms proposals for which the Convocations are considering. This is merely to enable the thing to be tried out in the field, so to speak, to see that there is nothing completely impracticable about it. The period here would be two years only with regard to any one proposal This, of course, is not a general provision applying to a diocese or province, still less to the whole country. Proposed draft forms for a two-year period of experiment may be tried out in selected parishes, and the consent of the parochial church council, of the incumbent, and of the lay people concerned in occasional offices all has to be obtained as well.
The second main object of the Measure is to permit forms of service to be drawn up and used for special occasions for which the Book of Common Prayer has made no provision. This can be done by the Convocation, by the ordinary or by the incumbent. Clauses 4 and 6 are the relevant provisions here. For Convocation in each province, the majority must be satisfied that the form of service is reverent, seemly and not contrary to or indicative of any departure from the doctrine of the Church of England. The ordinary must be satisfied about this as regards his diocese when he makes a proposal of this kind. So must the incumbent. All those matters must be quite clear in the mind of the body which has the power to make the proposed form.
In the case of the incumbent drawing up a special service for a special occasion, there are two formidable provisions which make it absolutely plain that nothing can be done contrary to general acceptance. First, anyone objecting to what the incumbent does in the matter may go straight to the bishop of the diocese for pastoral guidance to see whether the bishop can iron out the difficulty, but, whether or not that succeeds, the complainant may appeal to the Church courts.
There was a time when the mere mention of Church courts would produce derision on the ground that they were an anachronism, but, in 1963, by the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure, Parliament produced an entirely new, streamlined and, I venture to prophesy, effective system of ecclesiastical courts which will come into operation on the 1st of next month, so that this appeal to the Church courts will certainly be effective.
The third object of the Measure is to permit variations not of substantial importance to be made by the incumbent in the services prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer. The words "not of substantial importance" come from the Consolidation of Enactments (Procedure) Act, 1949, Section 2. As the House knows, it is by no means infrequent that consolidating Measures are brought before us in order to bring within small compass a wide range of legislation to make it much more accessible, up to date and streamlined.


In Section 2 of the 1949 Act, Parliament spoke of the removal of
anomalies which are not of substantial importance".
As every consolidating Measure comes before the House, a body of "case law" is created and developed which tends to show what Parliament thinks reasonable to allow as an alteration of the original Statutes which is not of substantial importance when the consolidation is brought about. It was thought desirable to use these words in this Measure in order that this body of "case law", as I have called it—I put it in inverted commas—should be available to help in deciding what is or is not of substantial importance.
The object of this part of the Measure is to allow the alteration of words. The obvious example which comes to mind is "Prevent us, O Lord". Of course, "prevent us" does not now mean what is meant in 1662, but if one ventures to use the words "go before us" one commits an illegality. There are the same stringent safeguards in this connection which will be applied to the forms of service for special occasions to which I have just referred, namely, the application to the bishop for pastoral guidance and the appeal to the courts.
It remains now for me to touch upon Clause 8 which makes clear what are the services ordered by lawful authority. This part of the Measure is extremely important for the individual clergyman who has to make his declarations. He has to make them although he knows perfectly well that there are, perhaps, many hundreds of deviations from the letter of 1662 which are in commonly accepted use. Strictly speaking, he knows that he ought not to make his declaration, and this problem has been something weighing on the consciences of a great many ministers for a long time. It is thought right to make absolutely plain by this Clause just what is intended by the clergyman when he makes the declaration. In future, he will be able to make it without dissembling or mental reservation.
The services than which they declare they "will use no other" are in future to be, under this Measure, if accepted, the services in the Book of Common Prayer, those which are authorised under this Measure and those which are authorised by Royal Warrant or by Order

in Council. So it is absolutely plain from now on, just precisely what the clergyman is declaring.
I believe that this Measure is a great step forward, well within the splendid tradition of the Church of England, of which it has been the wisdom to keep the mean between too great rigidity and too easy acceptance of change. Seldom, I submit, has a subject of such important consequence been made the result of such careful and considerate change. I submit the Measure to the House for approval as one which will still controversy and enable calm minds to apply themselves to the achievement of that harmony within the Church which will bring peace as well in Church and State relations as in the whole body of the nation whom we are here to serve.

7.30 p.m.

Mr. W. H. K. Baker: In rising to address the House for the first time, I would crave its customary indulgence. It may well be asked why I, as a Scottish Member, should address the House on this Measure but I do not consider that coming from north of the Border precludes me from giving my views on this subject. I declare the fact that I am a baptised and confirmed member of the Church of England and still adhere to the faith.
My constituency must be one of the most beautiful in the United Kingdom, from the high hills, now snow covered, in the south, sweeping down to the coastal plain with many gradations of colour and scenery. The people of Banffshire are mostly concerned with nature-from the rugged sheep farmers in the north, the cattle breeders in the midlands to the coastal area, where we have possibly the finest inshore fishing fleet in the United Kingdom. With all this, the people of Banffshire are a church-loving and a church-going people. They embrace many faiths, predominantly, of course, the Church of Scotland, but there are many others, including Episcopalians and members of the Roman Catholic faith.
My predecessor in this House was Sir William Duthie. He was known in the House, I understand, as the "Fishermen's M.P." and as such was very widely respected both in the House and throughout the nation. One of his most notable contributions to the life of the country was the deep interest he took,


the great amount of trouble and the great lengths to which he went to support his main love—the Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen.
Under Sir William's wise leadership over many years, the Mission has become a flourishing concern, catering for and coping with the needs of fishermen throughout the United Kingdom and, indeed, in other countries as well. The Mission has had a very flourishing evangelical flavour to it and it is on an evangelical note that I wish to address this house tonight.
Like the hon. and learned Member for Brigg (Mr. E. L. Mallalieu), I am sure that hon. Members on both sides welcome this Measure, as I do. But I welcome it with certain reservations. If we require progress in our nation and in our lives, we must have progress in the Church as well. The mission of the Church is to reach and teach people, both the young and the not so young, and the Church and, indeed, this House, must not be afraid to experiment. But, in experiment, we must be careful not to split the atom. If we do split the atom then catastrophe must result. The atom must remain whole and intact. The atom in this context is, to my mind, doctrine.
Most references in this Measure are defined in Clause 9 but doctrine is not defined in that Clause. The doctrine of the Church of England is referred to four times in the Measure—in Clause 1, twice in Clause 4 and again in Clause 7. The last Parliament passed a Measure that was to my mind a retrograde step. This was the Vestures of Ministers Measure. Some people, including myself, did not and still do not accept that no significance or serious distinction attaches to the wearing of vestments. Similarly, I think that many ardent members of the Anglican Communion will attach great significance to the words:
The doctrine of the Church of England".
To many of us this doctrine is enshrined—indeed, it is enshrined—in the Thirty-Nine Articles and we have seen many deacons coming forward for ordination avowing upon the Thirty-Nine Articles and then saying that they do not mean to adhere to them. I contend that this is of fundamental importance.
Secondly, I draw attention to Clause 5 which says:
Subject to the provisions of this Measure the Minister may in his discretion make and use variations which are not of substantial importance in any form of Service prescribed by the Book of Common Prayer or authorised for use under this Measure according to particular circumstances.
The important words here are:
… use variations which are not of substantial importance …
Pushed to its conclusion, that Clause could legalise variations by an incumbent either of his own making or utilising present illegalities. For instance, I consider that it would be possible for an incumbent to use services out of the 1928 Prayer Book.
That Prayer Book was rejected by this House and, therefore, an incumbent using a service from it would be going against the express wish of the House. In my view, strict control of the variations is necessary, and the hon. and learned Member has pointed out that it is possible.
Illegalities are going on at present, as we all know. If the services stay as they are, can we be sure that they will be safeguarded by the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measures? If we are to safeguard the reformed, Protestant nature of what I maintain is our greatest national heritage, the Church of England, these things must be enforced.
While giving my support to the Measure, I would plead for effective control, with adherence to the Thirty-Nine Articles. These Thirty-Nine Articles are based on Biblical truth. Biblical truth is the basis of our Christian faith.
With these reservations, I support the Measure.

7.40 p.m.

Sir Harry Legge-Bourke: It gives me immense pleasure to be able to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Banff (Mr. Baker) on his maiden speech. I am particularly pleased to be able to do so, because the last time I went to the Church in Scotland it was in his constituency. I can also confirm what he said about his constituents being good church-goers. I am sure that the whole House will have appreciated the sincerity with which he delivered his maiden speech and the clarity and fairness with which he put his arguments. This is a topic on


which it is very easy to become slightly overheated and those who sometimes get most heated are those who share the views which my hon. Friend expressed. It is, therefore, all the more creditable that he managed to hold the interest of the House so admirably.
I must confess a certain guilt in that when we were discussing the Jurisdiction Measure I got somewhat overheated myself on one occasion. I was very glad to hear the hon. and learned Member for Brigg (Mr. E. L. Mallalieu), whom I thank for the way in which he moved the Measure, say that nothing in this Measure undermined the force of the Jurisdiction Measure and that the implementation of this would depend on the use of the Jurisdiction Measure in extreme cases.
When we debated the Jurisdiction Measure, on 16th July, 1963, I made some remarks to which some exception was taken, not only by clergy in my constituency, but by the Archbishop himself. He was kind enough after that to address a letter to me and there was one passage in it relevant to what we are discussing tonight. I had referred to the Archbishop's remarks on his enthronement in Canterbury when he had, as I thought, indicated that if Parliament were now to prevent the Church from making certain reforms in its canon law, particularly those concerning the conduct of its services, it would not be tolerable for the Church to remain established. I thought that that was at least the inference of his remarks.
Perhaps I had misunderstood when I heard him on television making his address on that occasion and when reading the report in indirect speech in The Times afterwards. Perhaps I misunderstood the measure of freedom for which the Church was asking. The Archbishop pointed out that he had never asked for complete freedom, but only for greater freedom than the Church had at that time. Of course I fully accept that qualification—that it is greater freedom and not complete freedom for which the Church is asking.
My difficulty arises from the fact that so many people are acting in flagrant contravention of the law as it stands and it is not over-encouraging to those who regret that the law is being broken to feel that more alternatives are now to be given. If this Measure is taken to the full extent of what it permits, I suspect

what otherwise would have been infringements of the law as it stands will be far fewer than is now the case in many churches.
However, the biggest question which all this begs is whether, if the Measure is passed and certain new alternative forms of service are introduced and accepted by the Church and generally adopted later, those whose practices in their churches have been wholly beyond what these alternative services permit will now come back and comply at least with the alternative forms of service. The enforcement of that must rely on the new Jurisdiction Measure and the discipline which the bishops can impose from it.
I have no hesitation in saying that the Bishop of Ely would have the greatest reluctance ever to have to resort to the use of that Measure in the Diocese of Ely, but that it exists cannot now be denied. It is very unlikely that we would have many churches or parishes in that diocese affected by the experimental period. The need for the experimentation is likely to be more frequently expressed in those dioceses where there are large urban populations, while in the remoter country districts the need for the alternative forms of service will be less.
I had that very forcefully confirmed at a meeting which I had only last Friday morning with clergy from the Diocese of Ely and living in my constituency. I should like to take this opportunity to say that I found this meeting of immense help. Between 25 and 30 clergy were present and we had a very useful discussion about this Measure. But it must be appreciated that not all the clergy and very few members of the laity have yet fully apprehended what the Church Assembly has been doing in this connection.
I do not want at great length to debate who should be members of the House of Laity in the Church Assembly. Indeed, it would probably be out of order to do so. However, in saying what the laity want we have to recognise that in this context the only avenue which the laity has for saying what it wants is through the House of Laity, which is a somewhat diluted form of democracy for the average parishioner.
Members of the House of Laity who have been instrumental in urging this Measure—and certain parts of it are at


the instigation of the House of Laity rather than the House of Clergy or the bishops—are enthusiasts. But how did they get there? The parochial church council chooses its delegate to the diocesan conference and the diocesan conference then chooses who should be the member of the House of Laity, but that member, strangely enough, need not even be a parochial church councillor. Members of the House of Laity are tremendous enthusiasts and take a great interest in the work of the Church, and all power to them for doing so. But we must recognise that all too often they are very remote from the parishioners in the parishes of the diocese which sent them to the House of Laity. If one took a cross-section of the average people, very few would know who was the local member of the House of Laity.
I regard this as a great pity and unnecessary. The only reason I raise the matter tonight is because I hope that one of the things which will happen if we pass this Measure is that members of the House of Laity who took part in the discussions which led to the introduction of this Measure will use every avenue open to them to help the clergy in the parishes to make parishioners understand what is afoot. I have always been surprised that so few members of the House of Laity take the trouble to use the vehicle, for instance, of the parish magazines in the diocese which they represent to put across to parishioners what has been happening in the Church Assembly.
Probably it was a wise decision not to arouse intense feeling in the parochial church councils or among parishioners until such time as this Measure was either passed or not passed. I am sure that, although very little has been done up to now, it will be the intention of the clergy in the dioceses to ensure that the parishioners are better informed about these Measures. But, as I say, the number of selected parishes which will have a two-year experimental period will not be great. I think also that it is probably true to say that, generally speaking, they will be urban rather than rural parishes.
It should be of interest to many parishes outside the ones selected to know what is being done, how it is being accepted and whether it is causing

resentment among the older parishioners. If only those who are most vociferous in resenting change would take the trouble to look at the Prayer Book in detail, they would find, as the hon. and learned Member for Brigg indicated, that there are many variations of it today. Many things are left out. I should say that the errors are ones of omission rather than insertion. The order in which things are done is varied frequently.
For instance, it is illegal for the banns of marriage to be read when they usually are read. They should be read after the second lesson. I cannot believe that it matters very much when they are read, as long as they are read. But these minor variations are illegal as the law stands.
There is the splendid Athanasian Creed which is supposed to be recited on many days of the Church's Year—Christmas, Epiphany, Easter and many Saints' Days. The Athanasian Feast has always had that' splendid title which tickles my fancy, Quicunque vult. That is hardly ever said in church today and it may be it is because people do not like the penultimate verse, which says
 … they that have done evil" shall be cast "into everlasting fire".
Nobody likes to be cast into everlasting fire, and I know that Hell is no longer fashionable in Church thinking—more is the pity. If people stuck to the Bible, they would find it very hard to leave Hell out of it.
However, the fact remains that even in the ordinary morning service many things are done which are illegal and yet people propound that we must adhere to the 1662 Prayer Book, as though it was being adhered to now. Of course it is not. In the Communion Service and others there are many variations.

Mr. Gilbert Longden: My hon. Friend must think it strange to modern ears that we should pray that people should indifferently administer justice.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: I am all for giving certain words whose meanings have changed in usage a new meaning which at least has the right implication. However, I hope that there is one word which will be left in and which is all too often changed, "lively". It is


better than "living" and is much more gay. Minor points like that which come under the heading of "not substantially important" can be adjusted without too much palaver.
There is one feature of the Prayer Book which I should like to see used more often, and that is the Catechism. The rubric in the Catechism says:
The Curate of every Parish shall diligently upon Sundays and Holy days, after the second lesson at evening prayer, openly in the church instruct and examine so many children of his Parish sent unto him as he shall think convenient in some part of this Catechism".
I sometimes wonder whether we should have the juvenile delinquency which we have today if that had been done regularly over the years.
There are many other aspects of the Prayer Book which are all too little known by the average member of the laity. My feeling from the discussion which I had with the clergy in Ely last Friday was that the occasional offices to which the hon. and learned Member for Brigg referred are the ones most likely to be altered first. The Bishop of Ely indicated that he thought that probably the Baptism Service and the Churching of Women were the two which would be altered before the Communion was altered. Perhaps there is a division of opinion on that and it may vary from diocese to diocese. But my feeling is that we might well take note of what happened in Kenya because there the Prayer Book has been considerably brought up to date.
One of the clergymen in the Isle of Ely lived in Kenya for some time and he was able to tell us last Friday that the way that they went about the matter in Kenya was to introduce, first in pamphlet form, the alternative forms of some of the occasional services and then, much later, when they had got into customary use embody a complete Prayer Book and bring that into use. It was done gradually, and the point was made—it is a sound one, I think—that what is in the Statute is not the only thing which matters; custom is also of immense importance.
Looking at our proceedings here, we must agree, I think, that much of the statute law with which we have to deal has been amended or introduced as a result of custom having made it necessary.

It would be well for the Church to bear that in mind.
In other words, I hope that this experimental period will not be hurried too much and that the custom will be allowed to grow which will eventually become widely shared and then there will be much less trouble in achieving final and complete embodiment of the various changes. But if there are to be only three or four years before Parliament is asked to confirm it for all time, there will be a great deal of trouble. I should like to see the custom established, accepted and liked.
It is only fair to say that, although I am satisfied that the vast majority of the clergy in my constituency wish this Measure to be passed, there are other opinions, and I think that I should quote from a letter which I received from one of the rectors in my constituency. He said:
The tendency of all revisions is to place more and more authority (and grants of permission) in the hands of Bishops. I regard this as a thoroughly bad thing. The last time I went through the proposed revision of the Canon Law I calculated that if I in this parish obeyed the letter of the proposed Canons, I should have to write to the Bishop about once a fortnight for matters of his decision where I, as incumbent, knew all the facts and persons, and he knew nothing. I consider that the rule to be observed is: Pass no measures which will increase the Bishop's authority or discretion, but trust the incumbents.
All of us know that some members of the clergy perhaps enjoy being outspoken for the sake of argument, and my correspondent in this case admits that he is. Nevertheless, he stresses the two basic rules that he regards as essential and think that they are important. We probably agree entirely with the first one:
The parish system of the Church must be retained and strengthened. It has served the nation wonderfully well since the reign of King John and to throw it aside is madness.
I should have thought that the obvious effect of this Measure would be to strengthen the parish. It ought to help the incumbent to have a bigger congregation and it should make it possible for people to come to church who now feel that the services are so archaic that they are not interested.
In discussing the matter with the clergy in my constituency, I have found that, although we may be regarded as a fairly remote rural area, some of them have


already noticed that young people are coming to them and asking for a more up-to-date form of service. Almost in the same breath, however, someone else will tell me that the young are just as fond of the old services as are the older parishioners.
What we have to face is that in the experimental period at least, the old and the new must go side by side. It would be a great mistake if in introducing the alternative form of service in the experimental period, that were the only form of service available. To me, this would be a tragedy if it resulted, as in some cases it could do all too easily, in older parishioners drifting away and going outside their parish. My feeling is that in introducing this Measure and the alternative form of service, the Church will be very wise to be as compassionate as possible in its approach to the matter. Where the real difficulty is likely to arise is when matters of doctrine become involved.
My hon. Friend the Member for Banff mentioned the Articles of religion. There are, for example, Canon J. D. Pearce Higgins, in 1963, and Canon Montifiore, now of Great St. Mary's at Cambridge. Both of them, on taking up their new jobs, one at Southwark and the other at Cambridge, protested that they did not agree with certain of the Articles. Each of them has his own special dislikes. For example, Canon Montifiore does not like Article 13, whilst Canon Pearce Higgins does not like Articles 4, 10, 11, 12 and especially 17. As my hon. Friend the Member for Banff said, they are all based on the Bible. It is difficult to understand how some of these exceptions are taken by people who, nevertheless, are perfectly happy about the Creed. Where the difficulty will arise, if it ever does, will be where the alternative form of service runs the gauntlet on the really thin edge dividing one interpretation of the doctrine from another.
Bearing in mind the different denominations that have existed in the Christian world, one sees that inevitably there will be certain alternative forms of service which some will regard as infringing doctrine whereas others will not. This is where the rub is likely to come if it comes at all. I hope again, therefore, that

everything will be done exceedingly gradually and with a sense of compassion and understanding. I gather that in the Diocese of Ely an advisory committee is being set up to advise on what should be included in the interpretation under Clause 5 of the
variations which are not of substantial importance.
It is important to recollect that not only will the Measure which we are considering affect people beyond the shores of England, but also that the Church of England itself has been trying to work more and more closely with the Methodist Church. I am certain that there is a vast wealth of good will inside the Church of England that realises that it would be hardly fair to expect the followers of John Wesley to come back and work with the Church of England if the Church of England itself is to perpetuate the very things which made John Wesley break away from it. Indeed, it would be a pity if in whatever we do about this Measure we were to overlook the importance of realising that the Free Churches, the Methodists particularly, and the Church of England have been working together for some time and are coming closer. Do not let us spoil this progress by starting to be inflammatory over this Measure.
I am convinced that the Church of England is sensible enough not to overstretch the limit of endurance of the followers of John Wesley. I want to see those two Churches brought together. Indeed, in the Isle of Ely, where we have a strong Methodist representation among the population, one of my major intentions has always been to avoid saying anything that will divide the Church further away from the Methodists than it was in days gone by. I have, I hope, done something ,to try to bring the two together. Certainly, anything I do in connection with this Measure will be done realising the need the whole time to complete the process of coming together.
It is for that reason that I hope that the House will pass this Measure. I have thought about it a very great deal. As I tried to indicate when discussing the Jurisdiction Measure, I was brought up very "low church" indeed. There are many things which the high churchmen like having in their churches which I find either utterly meaningless or occasionally


very irritating. Nevertheless, I hope that I have learnt by experience not to become too unselfish about it and that certain things which mean a great deal to some people mean very little to me. That is how I approach this Measure.
I do not wish to be a bigot about it, but I should like to recall a paragraph from a document which most of us were sent at the time when these Measures were first being mooted. It was a booklet called "Firm Foundation" by Lieutenant General Sir Arthur Smith, a former Chief of the Imperial General Staff in Cairo during the war, a man for whom many of us have very great respect. Towards the end of that document, he stated:
Revision is in the air again and, while it is hoped that the many improvements in the 1928 book may find their way into any new liturgy—all changes must be tested both in the Book of Common Prayer and in the canons, by the Word of God. The temptation to trim our worship to fit in with personal whims is ever present. The plausible argument that men and women should be allowed to worship God in the way they like, is dangerous for in St. John's Gospel we are told that our worship must be 'in spirit and in truth'. It cannot be 'in spirit' if what 'I want' clashes with what the Holy Spirit wants, and it cannot be 'in truth' unless it conforms to Biblical teaching.
The only plea I would make is that in making these alternative forms of service consistent with the doctrine, the doctrine of the Bible should be regarded as being quite as important as the doctrine of some churchmen. They do not always coincide. Let us hope that in the future they always will.

8.10 p.m.

Mr. Peter Mills: I am grateful for this chance of saying a few words about this Measure. I very much appreciated what was said by the hon. Member for Banff (Mr. Baker). His speech was a very reasoned one for a maiden speech, and I congratulate him on it.
I rise to speak as a member of the House of Laity of the Church Assembly, and thus one who had a part to play in the construction of this Measure in the Assembly—a minor part it is true—and I am grateful for the chance of debating it here. I am also a diocesan reader in this beloved Church of England, so I may well have to put into practice some

of the changes that might take place in the future. It is not often that one is in at the beginning of a Measure, seeks to help it through the House, and finally seeks to put it into practice in our parishes. This is a great honour, and this makes me very interested in this Measure and of course makes me have a great concern for it in every detail.
I believe that this Measure is long overdue. The Church of England is one of the last Churches in the Anglican Communion to make a revision of the Liturgy. The Church of England is very slow to change, and has this habit, as I have seen in the Church Assembly, of appointing endless committees and having endless arguments before anything is done. It reminds me of the rather unkind story that I heard, that the Church of England, when it hears the last trump, will set up a committee to see whether it is the last trump, or the one before the last.
But now we have action. Now we have finished with the committees, and we have action, and I welcome this Measure as long as certain of the most important parts of it, and as long as certain doctrines, are maintained. Let us look again at Clause 1 which refers to
every such form of Service being in their opinion neither contrary to nor indicative of any departure from, the doctrine of the Church of England.
This is vital to the future of the Church of England, let alone to the future of this Measure. It is true that in these days "some would remove the landmarks", but our doctrine of the Church of England is a landmark which must be preserved, and I believe that this doctrine is based on the Thirty-Nine Articles and indeed on Biblical authority.
Our doctrine must always be based on Scripture, as it is now. I believe that there must be no wavering from this standard, and so I hope that these experimental services, which I welcome, will be based on scriptural truths. To my mind in some: cases this was overlooked in the 1928 Prayer Book, and I believe that most people are glad that that Prayer Book was not ratified.
To my way of thinking, the old 1662 Prayer Book is a good basis from which to start. Of course, it needs bringing up to date. It is not perfect. It needs additions, and so on. New forms of service


must be added, but it was scriptural. It was the anchor of our beliefs for many years, and I believe that in these days there is a strong threat to this anchorage. I believe it is right that there should be these experimental services, but let us get the scriptural doctrines right—the call to confession, the fact of sin, the absolution, the justification by faith, and so on. This thread runs right through the 1662 Prayer Book, and I believe that this must be a basis for future Prayer Books and experimental services. I therefore make a strong plea for these experimental services to be based on Holy Scripture.
Many people have contacted me over this Measure, and I should like to read a letter from the Church of England Evangelical Committee. It is from Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur Smith, who I believe was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke). He says
While welcoming the latitude to alter our Liturgy to make it more in keeping with the needs of the day, this Measure does away with the principles of uniformity and the safeguards thereof."—
I am not inclined to agree with that.
There are consequent dangers lest the additional freedom is abused and practices, which have not the authority of Holy Scripture creep in and become consolidated.
It is that last phrase which is so important—
which have not the authority of Holy Scripture creep in and become consolidated.
I believe that there is a real danger in this, and I am not at all afraid to state that unless our services and our Prayer Book, and indeed our lives, are based on this solid rock of the foundation of Holy Scripture we are in grave peril.
Clause 2 contains the phrase
subject to the control and supervision of the Bishop of the Diocese …
This is absolutely right. It places a great responsibility on bishops, but it is right to do so, for they are our advisers in God, and they are the shepherds of the flock. It means great discretion for them in this control and supervision, and I hope they will remember that all shades of churchmanship must be taken into account and respected by them. This places a great responsibility on their shoulders, but I believe that it is right to

do so, and I hope that there will be strict control and supervision. There is far too much latitude at the moment.
What we do not want at the moment is complete uniformity of service to the very letter, but unity of spirit, unity of aim, and unity of services based on scripture. I think that if there are too many experimental services going on at one time, there is a danger that people will be confused. A person may have followed one type of service in his church for many years. He may have had a chance to take part in one of these experimental services. He may then move to another area, and find that the service is different. This is something which we must watch. We must make haste slowly, and not have too many experiments being conducted at one time. This is the Church of England, and when people move around the country they have a right to expect a service which they can understand and appreciate.
I welcome Clause 3, which is very important. I hope that the P.C.C.s will play their part in this. Too often they are asleep, and do not awake to their responsibilities. Quite often after a meeting of my own P.C.C. I hear a tremendous amount of talk and chitter outside, but very little is said at the meeting itself. Much is proposed about what they are going to say, but when it comes to it they do not say very much. This is their chance. They should take a live part in criticising, helping and advising their incumbents when these experimental services come to their churches. If they agree to them I hope that they will give them their full support, so that the entire parish may work together to make these changes a real success.
Clause 5 provides for minor variations in the conduct of private prayer. I welcome this. As a lay reader in the Church of England I confess that I have been doing many things which are illegal. I have been leaving out things and adding things, Sunday by Sunday. Most readers do this. Now we have a chance to get the matter right. I am sure that this provision will be welcomed not only by the readers—who are playing an ever-increasing part in the maintenance of church services in the countryside—but also by the incumbents. In the countryside this is very important—perhaps even more important than in the towns. We must have these changes and experiments in the services.
I welcome the Measure with one proviso—a most important one. To me the Measure stands or falls on the question whether the fundamental doctrine of the Church of England is preserved. If it is, I welcome the Measure and wish it every success.

8.21 p.m.

Captain L. P. S. Orr: I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Banff (Mr. Baker) on his maiden speech. By a curious coincidence, when I made by maiden speech about 15 years ago one of the first to congratulate me was my hon. Friend's predecessor, Sir William Duthie. I made my maiden speech on the subject of inshore fishing, and Sir William was a great expert on it. I would not congratulate my hon. Friend on the choice of subject for his maiden speech. It is not an easy one on which to make a maiden speech. I hope that his constituents will understand that the whole House appreciated my hon. Friend's clarity and sincerity, and the fact that he chose to address the House of Commons for the first time upon a subject of great importance. It shows that he puts first things first.
I cannot join with those who have welcomed the Measure, although I agree with much of what has been said. Not all the eloquence and lucidity of the hon. and learned Member for Brigg (Mr. E. L. Mallalieu), who introduced it, can persuade me that this is other than a sad occasion. Whatever the hon. Member may say, this is the beginning of the end of Parliamentary control over public worship in the Church of England. Secondly, it is the beginning of the end of Common Prayer as we know it. I find it sad that so few people—even in this House, and certainly outside it—seem to care about it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Torrington (Mr. Peter Mills) talked about the doctrine of the Church of England and the importance of the fact that it is founded upon the Holy Scriptures and is embodied and expressed in the Thirty-Nine Articles of religion. One of the great things about the Church of England is that when the Thirty-Nine Articles of religion were drawn up in the great Reformation Synod they were drawn in such a form that they permitted within the Church of England a fairly

wide diversity of view. They ensured that the Church of England was sufficiently comprehensive to contain within it people who approached some of the great questions of theology from different standpoints.
If we study the Thirty-Nine Articles we cannot complain that they do not contain room for a diversity of religious thought. What the Articles ensured was that however different might be the approach of different people to some of the great fundamentals of the Faith, at least they could all worship together, according to a common form; that at least in the services of worship of God they could say the same things, even though they might interpret them differently and although to one the words might mean something different from what they meant to another. At least it was possible for people to worship together.
No one would hold that the 1662 Prayer Book should not be revised. The magnificence and beauty of the Tudor English is unfortunately a barrier to a great many people, especially young people, who are not accustomed to understand things written in Tudor English and who, while they may appreciate the beauty of the language, might not understand the words as they should be understood. There is every need for a revision of the Book of Common Prayer, but such revision should be in the direction of modernising its language where the necessity arises—modernising it so that it can cater for certain forms of service which the old Book did not cater for. There are many ways in which it could be improved.
But one way in which it will not be improved is by this Measure. I believe that at the end of the 14 years there will be no chance for Common Prayer. I do not believe that it will be possible. The hon. Member who introduced the Measure said that at the end of fourteen years there would be two alternatives—first, to revert to the Prayer Book of 1662, and secondly, to come back to Parliament. I suggest that there is a third alternative, which is to revert to the law as it is now, namely, to the Prayer Book of 1662, but with chaos in practice. I am afraid that this is what will happen. I find it inexpressibly sad to have to predict that it will happen.
Instead of a common form of prayer throughout the whole of the Church of England, we shall have experimental services going on in one direction in one church and in another direction in another. People will move more and more apart. This Measure is diversive rather than unifying. It will steadily—I deeply regret to have to predict this—break up the Church of England into sectors. I believe that it will destroy the possibility of an ultimate common worship. It is tragic that in an age when we are looking for Christian unity among the Churches such a foolish precedent should be established.

Mr. W. R. van Straubenzee: I should be grateful if my hon. and gallant Friend would assist us a little further. He is at one with those in favour of the Measure that this wonderful heritage, the Book of Common Prayer, should be brought up to date. He has been critical of the Measure and the method now adopted. He is critical, I understand it, of the method of what one might call the block new Book, as in 1928. What other methods does he feel were open to the Church?

Captain Orr: I should not object to a new Book at all. There was a great deal in the 1928 Prayer Book. What was wrong with it was that under the new guise of modernisation it sought to make changes to the detriment of the Church of England. Provided a new Book were produced which did not make changes in the fundamental doctrines of the Church of England and did not appear to do so, or did not offend the consciences of people who tend to worship under the old Book, I should not be at all against a new Book of Common Prayer.
There is only one thing about this Measure which I would commend, and that is Clause 3. At least it preserves this element of democracy within the Church in that it requires the parochial church council's consent. I do not feel that this is an occasion for a long speech. I feel a sense of inexpressible sorrow, and I regard the passage of this Measure with the deepest regret.

8.32 p.m.

Mr. W. R. van Straubenzee: Like my hon. and gallant Friend

the Member for Down, South (Captain Orr), I wish to be brief, but I should like to pick up one or two of the points which have been made in the discussion in the hope that it may be helpful in our consideration of this Measure. Like my hon. and gallant Friend and other hon. Members, I join in the congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Banff (Mr. Baker) on his maiden speech. I should like also to congratulate the hon. and learned Member for Brigg (Mr. E. L. Mallalieu), who, I think, made his "maiden speech" in his present appointment, in which I know that hon. Members on both sides of the House wish him well.
My hon. Friend the Member for Banff made an extremely serious assertion which should, I think, in a friendly way be picked up at once. He made it obviously with absolute sincerity, but I think he is seriously mistaken. His assertion was based on Clause 5 of the Measure dealing with variations not of "substantial importance". He argued that immediately upon this Measure receiving the Royal Assent the 1928 Prayer Book would become, as it were, a legalised document. Quite apart from the fact that common sense would lead one to suppose that it could hardly be that so major a deviation would by this Clause be legalised, I am able to remind my hon. Friend of the words—though I may not quote them verbatim—of the Archbishop of Canterbury in another place when this Measure was discussed there; that such an interpretation unquestionably is wholly wrong; that the 1928 Prayer Book would have no more and no less authority than any other "experimental" service—if I may use that adjective in quotation marks; although I agree, it having been in existence for some years, it is likely, in part at least, to form part of one or other of the experimental services, but subject strictly to the safeguards set out in the first parts of this Measure, and most emphatically not by the operation of Clause 5.
If my hon. Friend, as I can well understand, is doubtful of my authority in saying that, perhaps he will take it as a correct interpretation by the Primate of what will become the law. I would also like to suggest to my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke), to whose speech we listened with so much interest, that it is, in some dioceses, the practice to circulate to the


laity an epitome of the work of the Church Assembly. He will know that there is produced by the Church Information Office an excellent regular epitome which, certainly in my Diocese of Oxford, is widely read and circulated. We are therefore fully able to read of the work of such persons as my hon. Friend the Member for Torrington (Mr. Mills) who work in the House of Laity. I am quite certain that he is right that it is even more important that this work should be widely known at present.
Finally, no one who has ever listened to these debates can possibly doubt the burning sincerity of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Down, South and others when talking of their fundamental belief in the doctrines of the Church of England. But would it not be fair of me to point out that the state of affairs which they envisage is that a service will be authorised for experimental use, which is contrary to the doctrines of the Church of England or deviates very seriously, that that deviation will be approved by both Houses of both Convocations by a two-thirds majority, that that deviation will also be authorised by the House of Laity by a two-thirds majority, and, finally, that in the experimental period it will be accented as practice by a parochial church council by a simple majority. I accept that, legally, all these things are possible, but is it not fair to say that in so far as it is possible to safeguard these matters in legal language—which is what we are discussing—all these safeguards tend to reinforce the view that it would be almost inconceivable under these circumstances that a service which no one beyond a tiny minority of people believed was contrary to the doctrine of the Church could be authorised for experimental use?
I believe that such is the tradition of the Church that, if there were even a tiny minority—minorities are very important—who had a case of what at any rate they believe to be substance, it would be far more likely that these various bodies would take a conservative position in authorising experiment than that they should do the contrary. I would hope very much that those fears need not be unduly aroused, for it is common ground between us that, lovely and magnificent though the heritage of Common Prayer may be, and

it is one which the Church of England is proud to share with others—for example, it is one upon which other Churches are drawing at exactly this moment—it is simply not fair to ask the clergy and the laity, both of whom have important parts to play, to use what was described in another place as the "blunted sword" of ancient language. However lovely and beautiful, it is for many a source of difficulty and a barrier in what ought to be something which unites all, whether they be young or old.
This is what the Church is surely asking for. In answer to my intervention, my hon. Friend expressed the view that it would have been better to do what I will loosely call another 1928, in the sense that the Church should once again have set to work and produced a complete book. That would have been a possible solution, but bearing in mind the immense difficulty and controversy of the last occasion, bearing in mind the acknowledged mistakes of the last occasion, bearing in mind, surely, the traditions of the Church in making its experimental changes over its history very slowly and very carefully indeed, is it not more reasonable, in fact, to test each proposition slowly and carefully and under very closely controlled conditions for very limited periods of time—as limited they are in the history of this Church and the House? After all, what is 14 years in such history? It seems to me to make sense that we should take very slow and cautious steps by way of practical experimental change.
I am afraid that I get a bit irritated at times when I read criticisms of the Church of England, when I read spread-eagled articles of failure often written by people who have no right to parade failure like that. I have said in the House before, and I repeat, that I am one of the innumerable hon. Members who keep closely in touch with the parishes in my constituency, and there is far more lively work, to use the phrase of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely, going on in the Church throughout the dioceses than there is dead wood.
But the laity and the clergy are crying out to be given a controlled freedom to bring their forms of worship into the twentieth century and beyond it. They


are not asking for a complete carte blanche. Such would be unreasonable and wholly out of keeping with the obligations—and they are obligations—of establishment which the Church accepts, along with the privileges. But they are looking to the House for that very limited measure of freedom which, personally, I hope we shall tonight be prepared to grant them.

8.43 p.m.

Sir Kenneth Pickthorn: Perhaps one ought to begin by saying a word of thanks to the Whips. We have complained on previous occasions of their habit of putting this sort of business on at a time when all honest men are in bed, and I think we may be grateful for having got this debate as far back in the day as this. I should like the Ministers to listen to me for a minute or two longer. I know that this is not Government business, but I am addressing myself to the Whips. I should like, if I may, to beg them not to weary in well-doing and I hope that, having got us far enough back for this debate to leave us a hope of getting to bed at a decent time, next time they will try to get us a bit further back so that we may have some hope of dining.
I would not go on further at this moment if I did not feel uniquely qualified to address the House on this occasion, partly because the real and literal centre of my diocese is the home of Cranmer, about whom we are all talking all the time, and partly because my great great grandmother came from Banff, which has dominated the debate. Availing myself of that qualification, I want to ask two or three questions. I apologise to those who have been present throughout the debate, because I may be repeating what was said by others more or less allusively.
I wish to put a few questions to the House, but somewhat more directly than they have been put so far. These discussions are riddled through and through with paradoxes. The function and method is paradoxical. Part of the paradox is that we have nobody here in charge of the debate and there is in no sense a Minister present to answer our questions. We cannot ask for assurances or advice on administrative matters at

all effectively. Nevertheless, I wish to put some questions and I will do so as though there were a Minister present to answer them.
We have been told that at the end of the seven or 14 year period, whichever it is, we shall be left with the alternative of either the 1962 Book or, in any particular parish or even generally, such variations as have been experimented with and approved. I think that I am right so far. I agree that, on the whole, we should pass the Measure, but, if so, what we hope for would seem to presume a very elaborate administrative preliminary.
We all know—indeed, we have been told this repeatedly today—that at present in practically every parish there is a wide variety of variations, some substantial—an unfortunate word, I do not hesitate to say—and some not so substantial; but either way, a great many of them. Considering the prospect before us—the "either-or" prospect which we have been told about—we must begin by having a Domesday Book of the variations; by knowing what the variations are in, for example, Alford, and by saying, "No, old boy. Those are all off. You cannot go on with those because you have had them for the last seven or 17 years, whatever it may be. You must now make a list of the variations you now want and those will be registered as experimental".
I do not see how it can be done but by this method. If we are not going to perform the task I have indicated in the way I have indicated, how is it to be done? Unless somebody is clear about that before the Measure begins to be effective, there will be trouble. Ecclesiastical troubles are always more bitter than other troubles, because everybody always feels that they are more sure on this subject than they are on other matters. They tend to say, "We are all right, we have been doing God's work", while they say, "But someone else has cheated a bit". It is that feeling of having been frustrated by cheating that makes people bitter, and makes them cheat, too.
Of this sort of thing there are old and new examples of what happens, and it is a commonplace of ecclesiastical history. I have no doubt that it is older than Christian history. It is the oldest thing in Christian controversy. I believe that it will happen again, but with a much


greater variety, both local and doctrinal, unless there are some answers given to the questions I am asking.
My second question concerns the "safeguards". The main topic about which I wish to speak on this issue is the parish church council. One of my hon. Friends who served on one of these councils and other ecclesiastical assemblies has already told how when members of them are on their way to meetings of parish church councils they are all chattering and chittering away like billy-ho about their plans and how they will tell the rector where he gets off and how our souls depend on this, that and the other. However, when they get there most of them say very little indeed. I have not sat on a council, only at lea afterwards, and sometimes heard them all making precisely this complaint—for contradictory reasons, often.
How are the bishops to make sure that parochial agreement in these matters is real, and is felt by the participants to be real? Unless we make sure of that, we shall get continual charges and countercharges of cheating. I must add something else I think true—and I say it in no anti-clerical spirit, whatever. I think that the rector, who is more concerned with the business before the parish church council than anyone else as a rule, as he should be, and is very often the most educated and intelligent man in the matter, also as he should be, is often apt not to be as self-critical as semi-honest politicians like us. When here we are fixing dates or the moment or the form of the vote to be taken, some of us always do it perfectly honestly. Those who do not do it perfectly honestly, unless they are half-wits, know when they are not doing it perfectly honestly, because this is a trade with a technique with which we are deeply familiar.
Parish church councils are superior to us in some respects but in respect of conscious technique they are our inferiors, and I feel sure that it is right to ask at this stage that there should be assurances from the ecclesiastical authorities, first of all, on the first point I have put, and, secondly, on this point that they are really to Indoctrinate and cross-examine incumbents to make sure that they understand that intellectual honesty in these matters is a deeply necessary spiritual quality, not easily got hold of; and that

if it is not go hold of, this attempt to get rid of controversy and bitterness is likely in the end to do more harm than good.

8.53 p.m.

Mr. Rafton Pounder: Perhaps I may preface my remarks, as many of my hon. Friends have done, by extending congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Banff (Mr. Baker) on his excellent maiden speech. Ecclesiastical debates—although this is only the third one at which I have been present—tend to become somewhat heated, and logic tends to suffer accordingly. That was not the case with my hon. Friend's excellent maiden speech. He was extremely logical and coherent—and I add that I could not have agreed more with what he said.
The hon. and learned Member for Brigg (Mr. E. L. Mallalieu) opened the debate with all the eloquence and plausibility of a member of his profession. His case was extremely skilfully presented, but certain words appear in this Measure which cause me as much anxiety as they cause those of my hon. Friends who have referred to them. I am thinking of such words as "doctrine", "substantial importance", and—perhaps worst of all—"in their opinion". These words really frighten me, and in spite of the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Woking-ham (Mr. van Straubenzee) I should like a categorical assurance that this Measure will not give scope to members of the clergy who are liturgically mischievous—because there are quite a number of such gentlemen.
My hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) expressed the hope, and I am sure that we all share it, that the ultra wayward will be brought back into the flock if this Measure goes through. I cannot wholly agree with the desire of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Down, South (Captain Orr) to modernise the English of the Book of Common Prayer. There are a tremendous number of people, of whom I am one, whose first appreciation of, and love for, the English language stems from the phraseology of the Book of Common Prayer, and from the music and rhythm of the words of that superb book.
Again, tonight there comes before Parliament yet another example of these piecemeal Measures. Times without


number items have been presented in isolation, each very important, but perhaps they would have been seen to be even more important if they could have been studied in the context of a whole. I recall that in the last Parliament two Measures were presented about which I felt particularly heated. They came as individual items. I do not think that, with the best will in the world, we can appreciate the whole significance of these Measures unless we can see the whole picture. If my memory serves me correctly, there are to be 14 of these Measures in total, of which we have probably seen four or five.
I share the misgivings of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Down, South, who spoke of the fear and likelihood of fragmentation amongst congregations arising as a result of this Measure. Are we sure that this is not yet another sop to those who have consistently engaged in illegal ecclesiastical practices? As an Anglican, I have believed, and I still passionately believe, that the Book of Common Prayer is the sheet anchor of this branch of Christendom, that it is the one point upon which all sections of the Anglican faith converge in unity and for guidance, that it is in fact the quintessence of the wisdom and unity of our faith.
Now it is to be regretted that there is the distinct possibility that the Book of Common Prayer, certainly in the form in which we have known it hitherto and the form in which our forefathers knew it, is not to continue in the form in which we would have liked to see it continue. Is it to become the symbol of a bygone age? I hope that it will not become such a symbol, but nevertheless I have my profoundest misgivings that it will do so.
Are we sure that this is not yet another trend away from the principles and ideals of the Reformation? Nobody in the House has an abhorrence of progress, least of all myself, but are we sure that we are not, under the guise of entering the 20th century, going back to the 14th or 15th centuries? This is more than a possibility, particularly in the light of the Measures which have gone before this one, the Holy Table Measure and the Vestures of Ministers Measure, which by no stretch of the imagination could be regarded as progressive. As

this Measure comes on the heels of those two, one has the gravest doubt whether this Measure is not similarly geared.
Hon. Members have spoken of the need for Church unity. This again is something which strikes a common chord in us all. My hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely made particular reference to the conversations taking place between the Anglican and Methodist Churches which everyone would like to see come to a successful conclusion. When people talk of Church unity, it fascinates me to consider what they mean by "Church unity". Are we talking of unity with our brothers and sisters in the Free Churches, or are we not? To my mind, this is what we should be talking about. Therefore, Measures such as this, which present a real danger of drawing away from unity with our fellow reformed Churches, are to be deeply regretted. If this Measure leads, or if any of these Measures lead, to a breaking down or other retarding of these conversations between the Free Churches, it is most definitely to be regretted.
Although the Measure has been substantially less glamorous than perhaps was the Vestures of Ministers Measure, or even the Holy Table Measure, nevertheless this Measure is probably the most significant and fundamental of all that we have seen so far. I am very concerned that we should be prepared to give into the hands of ecclesiastical dignitaries powers which, if we were discussing matters temporal, we would never in our wildest moments give to Ministers of the Crown. The Measure contains words such as "doctrine", "substantial importance", and "in their opinion". During the short period in which I have been in the House I do not recall that any Minister of the Crown has got away with the expression "in his opinion" in a Bill.
Then we come to what one might almost describe as Jesuitical dialectic, the word "experimental". This is something which, in the context of the other words which have been used, causes me some anxiety.
Clause 3, the parish council Clause as I will call it, is the only redeeming feature of this Measure. The Church of England expresses the opinions of a tremendous number of people, it embodies their feelings, aspirations, hopes


and also perhaps their fears. We have heard many times of the unrepresentative nature of the Church Assembly. I shall certainly not be discourteous to my hon. Friend the Member for Torrington (Mr. Peter Mills) on this, but such have been the doubts expressed in the House about the nature of the representation on that Assembly that one must be careful about reading too much into the bald voting figures as they have been presented.
In the first paragraph of the introduction in the Appendix to the Comments and Explanations by the Legislative Committee on the Prayer Book (Alternative and Other Services) Measure, I take exception to the word "elasticity" which for the moment I cannot find in the document but which I know is there somewhere. This is another unfortunate word to use in an ecclesiastical context, because surely any well-organised Church has a book of rules, not necessarily too stringent, from which departure is not taken too lightly. Are we, therefore, by using such words as "elasticity" going to allow a situation of laissez faire in the Church of England? If we are, I am most disturbed as to what could be the consequences of it.
I think that it was the well-documented Paul Report to the Church Assembly a year or 18 months ago which expressed concern about the way in which the churchgoing membership of the Church of England was declining and called for steps to be taken to bring the wanderers back to the fold. Is this Measure which is likely to divide parish against parish and section against section even within a single congregation likely to accomplish what we all want to see, namely, an increase in the churchgoing public? I am concerned about this. The Church of England is basically evangelical at heart and the average congregation is not particularly impressed by the trappings and fripperies of some of the Measures which have come before this House. I think that it was the Rev. Johnston, Vicar of Islington, who detailed the three essential qualities of a good canon or Measure. He said that it should be scriptural, it should be pastorally beneficial and it should be uncontroversial. On the first two points one must have a certain degree of reservation when related to this Measure, and while this Measure has not been highly controversial in the House or in the Church Assembly

one must have severe doubts about whether it would be similarly uncontroversial among the parishes of the land, which should be a matter of concern to us all.

9.5 p.m.

Mr. E. L. Mallalieu: It would be courteous if I made one or two remarks in reply to the debate. I am certain that those who are responsible for bringing the Measure before the House will be extremely grateful for the tone in which it has been debated. It is just that sort of tone which I think a great many people feel is spreading at present. The ecumenical movement all over the world is gathering force, and there have been references in the debate to our brothers the Methodists. I am certain that what has transpired in the debate can do nothing but good towards helping on that movement.
There is not very much to which I ought to reply. This is not in any sense a statement derogatory to those who have been good enough to intervene in the debate. When I say that, I mean that so much that has been said has really been a bringing out of truths, a bringing out which was markedly helped, I thought, by the hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee), in a speech which dealt to a certain extent with some of the points which have been raised in the debate and thereby saved me from doing it again.
The hon. and gallant Member for Down, South (Captain Orr) expressed two very strong fears which I can sum up in this way, that this would be the beginning of the end of Parliamentary control and the beginning of the end of Common Prayer. I can only give him my opinion on these matters, having looked as well as I may into the documents and all connected matters. I can only say that I believe him to be wrong on both counts. I know not whether it will give him comfort to hear that opinion, but I express it to him.
I dealt with the first point about Parliamentary control when I said that, at the end of period of experiment, whatever it might be, Parliament would have to be referred to again and would have the last word. I appreciate the point he makes that, if Parliament does not endorse the experiment, there will be a lapse back not to 1662 but rather


into the chaos which would then be created by diversity of experiment which had been going on, but I can only reply that, when the Church comes back to Parliament at the end of the period of experiment, it will be for the very purpose of establishing a Common Prayer again after the experiments have taken place.

Captain Orr: I am much obliged to the hon. and learned Gentleman for what he has said, but does he envisage that, at the end of this period, one would see Parliament presented with a consolidating Measure, a new Book of Common Prayer? Is that the intention?

Mr. Mallalieu: I am unable to speak on behalf of the authorities in this matter, but, if the hon. and gallant Gentleman asks me the question, I should expect to find either a Measure or Measures brought before Parliament, and these Measures together, or the Measure, if there be only one, would result in the establishment once more of a Common Prayer. Therefore, I have no fears on either of the counts on which the hon. and gallant Gentleman so eloquently expressed his fears. I can only hope that I am right. I firmly believe that I am.
The hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) had fears which he summed up in the sentence, "Are not we giving freedom to the very people who have abused it before?". In a sense, the right hon. Member for Carlton (Sir K. Pickthorn) entertained the same fear. He felt that there should be a "Domesday Book" made of all the existing illegal practices. In fact, this very thing is being done by the Archbishops' Liturgical Commission at the moment, and I have no doubt that, as a result of its efforts, conclusions will emerge which will be very useful in the experimental periods. I think that the "Domesday Book" which the right hon. Gentleman suggested is not, therefore, entirely necessary because those matters are already being largely dealt with.
This is a Measure of peace, a Measure which will bring peace and which will bring uniformity in the long run under the control of Parliament. There must be a certain amount of trust between Parliament and the Church. I hope that we shall give that trust now, during

the experimental period, and I firmly believe that the trust will be repaid to Parliament. If, at the end of the time, the trust has not been repaid, Parliament is supreme and can do very much what it likes in the long run when the whole period of experimentation has come to an end. I earnestly hope, therefore, that the House will agree that this Measure should be sent forward for Her Majesty's Royal Assent.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the Prayer Book (Alternative and Other Services) Measure, passed by the National Assembly of the Church of England, be presented to Her Majesty for Her Royal Assent in the form in which the said Measure was laid before Parliament.

CIVIL DEFENCE (EMERGENCY FEEDING)

9.10 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. John Mackie): I beg to move,
That the Civil Defence (Emergency Feeding) (Amendment) Regulations, 1965, a draft of which was laid before this House on 10th February, be approved.
These amending Regulations are straightforward. They are necessary because of the London Government Act, 1963, and merely correct an anomaly arising out of that Act. The Regulations amend the Civil Defence (Emergency Feeding) Regulations, 1951, which placed responsibility for emergency feeding arrangements on certain authorities. Local authorities are required by them to appoint emergency meals officers, to prepare and carry out plans for feeding the homeless after an attack, and to provide training in emergency feeding methods. It is this last function which concerns us tonight.
Section 49 of the London Government Act will have the effect of making the new London Boroughs and the City of London responsible for emergency feeding arrangements in their areas with effect from 1st April, 1965. Therefore, one of the duties of these authorities will be to give training to any of their own staff who would man the emergency feeding services.
Normally, the staff of the school meals service help with this work and so


require training. Under the present Regulations, however, the new boroughs in inner London would have no powers of training because education in inner London will, as a result of the 1963 Act, be the responsibility of the Inner London Education Authority and so the school meals staff will come under that Authority. In order to give local authorities in inner London the power to train school meals staff after 1st April the 1951 Regulations have to be amended.
These amending Regulations will put the matter right by giving the requisite power to train staff to the local authorities which will be responsible for the emergency feeding arrangements in inner London. This is in line with the arrangements that operate elsewhere.
The local authority associations have been consulted about these Regulations and no objections were raised, but I would point out that the L.C.C. made it clear that it would have preferred the Inner London Education Authority to be empowered to train the school meals staff in these arrangements. However, Section 49 of the Act places responsibility for civil defence generally on the London boroughs and the City. I hope that, with that explanation, these regulations will be approved.

9.13 p.m.

Mr. James Scott-Hopkins: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for explaining these Regulations so clearly, but I have one or two questions. These Regulations amend the 1951 Regulations, which lay specific duties on local authorities to perform. I understand, of course, that I cannot discuss the functions laid down in the 1951 Regulations except in so far as these Regulations amend them. In this respect, of course, the new inner London boroughs are being given certain powers.
How will the splitting up of existing functions take place? As things stand, the L.C.C. has been in charge of these functions for emergency feeding. Now these functions are to be split up between the inner London boroughs and, I assume, the Greater London Council. They will take on the functions which the L.C.C. has so far exercised.
Among the functions laid down in the 1951 Regulations was the duty of providing premises in which the population

could be fed in the case of an emergency. This was a function to be undertaken by the local authority, in this case the inner London boroughs. Are the existing premises so designated by the London County Council to be taken over? The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that in the case of an atomic attack premises would be useless unless they were proof against blast and the kind of damage which would eventuate from such an attack. What instructions has he given to the inner London boroughs about the provision of premises which could operate in an emergency?
The original Regulations also said that the local authority, that will now be the Greater London Council, should supply the Minister with an estimate of the necessary equipment for carrying out these functions connected with feeding the population. Presumably, the L.C.C. had made estimates and had acquired equipment. How is that equipment to be split among the G.L.C., which I imagine will operate on the fringe area of London, and the inner London boroughs which are to take over these duties inside London? There will be a fair amount of equipment and presumably it will have to be apportioned by some method and on some scale.
This takes us to the crux of the matter, which is whether the Government have decided rightly in making their decision to divide these functions between the Greater London Council and the inner London boroughs. Would it have been better to have given this function solely to the G.L.C. for the entire area, even though that did not coincide with the area designated in the 1963 Act?
The 1951 Regulations provided for the establishment of liaison among the various authorities. Now that there is a proliferation of the London boroughs dealing with the matter, I assume that some kind of co-ordination has been arranged; otherwise, there will be chaos in an emergency. What kind of coordinating body does the Parliamentary Secretary envisage and what kind of mutual aid, as provided in the original regulations, does he have in mind? The local authorities are charged with coordinating their efforts with those of their neighbours and co-operating with them. Some kind of liaison will be needed. The


L.C.C. would have fulfilled this function, but it is not difficult now to understand that a great deal of confusion could arise, because we now have seven or eight inner London boroughs together with the G.L.C. all trying to do the same thing. This could easily lead to confusion unless the hon. Gentleman has some scheme in mind to obviate it.
The Parliamentary Secretary said that the education staff of the inner London boroughs would be trained for this work, but he will appreciate that it is not just a matter of feeding the population. He has to get the food, hold it and cook it. Where does he intend to get the kind of personnel necessary for all that? Will he instruct the inner London boroughs to continue with their work, work which they and the L.C.C. were doing, of designating officers to be responsible for procurement and cooking and so on, people who would have to be qualified and expert and perhaps outside the local government service but whose services would be essential in an emergency?
I should like to know how much this will cost. Premises and stores which are blast- and bomb-proof cost money—if they are not that, then the exercise is completely useless. Also, what will be the cost of recruiting, not only local authority officers, but presumably experts, like butchers and others, outside the local authorities? Finally, what estimate has the Parliamentary Secretary received, or expect to receive, from these authorities setting out their needs as laid down in the original Regulations?
This is a rather extraordinary draft Statutory Instrument. I am glad that it has been presented. The Government have now accepted our nuclear policy. They are accepting the Greater London Council and the changes which that has meant. May I assume that they now accept the need for a first-rate Civil Defence and that they will give top priority to ensuring that we have a first-rate Civil Defence? Will they pursue vigorously the object of having a Civil Defence which is worth while and which can operate?
I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will answer the questions which I have put.

9.21 p.m.

Sir Douglas Glover: I propose to refer only to paragraph 2(c) which deals with training
suitable members of the staff of the Inner London Education Authority".
It seems to me that this is conscription by the back door. Have the members of the teaching staff of the inner London Education Authority been asked whether they are prepared to volunteer for these tasks?
As I understand it, when they entered into an agreement on their terms of service it was not part of their duty to go into contaminated areas to provide food for the population of London. Yet, by this very simple Statutory Instrument, the Parliamentary Secretary, on behalf of the Government, proposes to put increased onerous responsibilities on the teaching staff of London. Have they been asked whether they wish to undertake them? Have they been consulted? Have they expressed their willingness to undertake these responsibilities? If not, what power does the Parliamentary Secretary have to say that
suitable members of the staff of the Inner London Education Authority
will undertake these duties?
This is introducing a form of conscription to carry out duties which will be very dangerous if ever a catastrophe overtakes this country and the population of London have to be fed. I am sure that if they were properly asked, the education authority and the teachers would be willing to have these responsibilities included in their terms of engagement. Has this been done?
If this is being done simply by a Statutory Instrument in this House, on which, as the Parliamentary Secretary knows, there is usually not a great deal of discussion, he is enlarging the commitment of the individual citizen very widely. If this is right for London, presumably members of the teaching profession all over the country will be saddled with the responsibility for emergency feeding in the event of a nuclear war. Is this clear, or is this just a forerunner of conscription by the back door? The Parliamentary Secretary should not smile. It is a very serious issue.
When I became a soldier of the Crown I had to swear oaths and do all sorts of things. The Leader of the Liberal Party


mutters that I was an officer. I was not an officer when I first joined, but that does not make any difference. Every enlisted man in the Forces undertakes a commitment which implies that he will put himself in danger in the service of the State. No teacher entered into such a commitment.
I should like the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to make it clear that before the Regulations are put into force, he will find out whether the teachers, without any arrangements for compensation and the like, will be prepared to undertake this onerous duty in the event of a nuclear war without further cover from the State to protect them in the course of carrying out that dangerous work.

9.25 p.m.

Mr. John Horner: It is proper and necessary that these amending Regulations should be before the House tonight and it is quite obvious that we shall see similar amending Regulations as the various Boundary Commissions which are to adjust the local government boundaries become effective in the next year or two.
We see in the Regulations the names of the new inner boroughs of the Greater London Council. My purpose in intervening in the debate is to remind the House that the 1951 Regulations, which tonight's Regulations amend, were adopted by the House of Commons in the age of the atomic bomb and that we are considering these amendments to the original Regulations in the age of the hydrogen bomb.
I should like the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, in the exercise of the functions which these amending Regulations impose upon the inner boroughs of the Greater London Council area, to bring his mind to bear upon some of the problems which those authorities now face, not in the atomic bomb period of 1951, but in the present day and age, when we are dealing with something of a quite different character in terms of feeding by emergency methods the population of London. It is these matters to which I should like the Joint Parliamentary Secretary and the Government to give their thoughts.
Perhaps I may illustrate the situation in this way. The nominal bomb, which was the term used in the Government's civil defence manuals when the original

Regulations were drafted and put before the House, was the sort of bomb which was used in the latter stages of the war. The nominal bomb today to which reference is made in civil defence manuals is what is known as the 10-megaton bomb. Therefore, if hon. Members at my invitation were to apply their minds to the problem which the Regulations seek to assist to resolve, they would see something like the following.
If a 10-megaton bomb—a nominal bomb—were to be exploded at ground level on the site of the Houses of Parliament, then at Romford, Waltham Abbey, Stanmore, Harrow, Surbiton and Chislehurst, which is roughly the area of the Greater London Council, a radius of 12 miles from this spot, the firefighting services would be engaged in handling what is called the main fire zone. That is to say, over a diameter of 24 miles, almost every building which had been exposed to the heat flash of the bomb would have been set on fire.
If one comes into the inner ring designated by these amending Regulations, a ring which would be rounded by Tottenham, Highgate, Fulham and Greenwich, that is, a radius of five miles from this site, we would then be in what is known as the area of total collapse. All the buildings would have collapsed.
An area within a radius of three and a half miles from this site from Hampstead to Stepney, and from Stoke Newington to Battersea, would be an area of total destruction. Everything would be flattened with a nominal bomb exploded at ground level here, and where this House now stands there would be a crater nearly one mile wide and deep enough to take Nelson's Column.
Those are the circumstances in which the volunteers, or conscripts, from the education authorities will be asked to organise emergency feeding. It is a very difficult task. It may well be that the Ministry of Agriculture has the means of supplying this area 24 miles in diameter, involving what is known as fire storm, with winds up to 180 miles per hour. I do not know whether it has, but what I do ask the Ministry to consider in drafting any further Regulations and in seeing that these amending Regulations are applied, is that the Ministry of Agriculture is not held responsible for Civil


Defence generally. The Ministry is concerned with only one aspect of Civil Defence arrangements.
I have here an article prepared by the Ministry of Agriculture for a symposium organised by the County Councils' Gazette, a responsible journal which, as I am sure hon. Members know, is the mouthpiece of the county councils. Dealing with this problem of providing food in the event of an emergency, the Ministry advises that certain foods will be fit for human consumption. For example, the reader is advised that any crops which have been subject to fall-out will call for careful handling, but peas within the pod will themselves be safe.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I think that the hon. Member is journeying outside the scope of the debate on these Regulations which deal only with the matter of the transfer of training resulting from this local Governmental change.

Mr. Horner: I am obliged to you, Mr. Speaker, and I accept your correction.
I want to suggest to the Ministry, through my hon. Friend, that when these Regulations are issued, and when the responsible authorities are obliged to implement them, advice will be given to them to ensure that this House is not being asked to agree to something of a totally unrealistic and empty character, but that we are in fact dealing with the realities of the situation.
I say with respect to the hon. Member for Ormskirk (Sir D. Glover) that this has nothing to do with conscription. It has nothing to do with forcing people to do something which they do not want to do in the event of a nuclear war. I have suggested that we would be doing our job effectively as a House if we considered the other aspects of the problem which I have sought to introduce tonight.

9.35 p.m.

Mr. Graham Page: The hon. Member for Oldbury and Halesowen (Mr. Horner) has shown the House how dangerous are the duties which, as I read the Regulations, we are asking teachers to undertake in connection with civil defence, and the absolute necessity for giving those people proper training. As I read the Regulations, we are appointing amateurs to carry out this very difficult, dangerous and expert duty.

These Regulations are made by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and deal with the division of local government functions, which come under the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. I see no representative of that Ministry on the Front Bench opposite. Why is not that Ministry represented, to tell us something about the division of local government functions under the Regulations? The Regulations apply to the teaching staff of an education authority, which I presume would come under the Ministry of Education.

Mr. John Mackie: It would help us if the hon. Member would show us exactly where in the Regulations teachers are mentioned.

Mr. Page: The Regulations refer to the staff of the Inner London Education Authority. If that does not mean teachers it must refer to the clerks in the offices of the Authority. If that is the case, I come back to what I said at first, namely, that we are appointing amateurs to carry out a very dangerous duty.
I do not know whether the phrase "the staff of the Inner London Education Authority" covers teachers or not, but I assume from the wording that it does. The staff of an education authority surely includes teachers as well as the clerks in the offices of that authority. An education authority must come under the Ministry of Education. I look at the Front Bench opposite and ask, where is a representative of the Ministry of Education? The members of the staff of an education authority are directed by the Regulations to carry out civil defence duties. Where is a representative of the Home Office on the Front Bench opposite? These are hybrid Regulations, and we should have them explained by each Ministry. It directs the inner London boroughs to undertake certain duties, but not by members of their own staffs; they are to enrol members of the staff of the Inner London Education Authority.
Under what terms of their contracts do these employees undertake these duties? Can they be forced to undertake them? Whether they are teachers or clerks in the offices their contracts are with the local government authorities, and as far as I know they do not sign any contracts to undertake these duties. They are not civil servants; they are local government


servants. Yet they are to be directed by these Regulations to undertake certain civil defence duties. What happens about compensation, if any of them is injured? These are very dangerous duties which they are expected to undertake. How is it that the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food orders educational staff to carry out these duties for a local authority? They are employees of one local authority, but they are ordered by a Government Department to carry out these duties for another local authority.
We need much more explanation of these Regulations. We need to be told how these poor, unfortunate amateurs will be trained to undertake these expert duties.

9.40 p.m.

Mr. Philip Noel-Baker: I want to say a few words to support my hon. Friend. I appeal to the Ministers concerned with Civil Defence, and particularly with Regulations such as these, to treat the House and the country with candour and to make known, as a function of their training, the real truth of nuclear war if it should happen.
Up to date the country has not been treated with candour. Last year we spent £23 million on Civil Defence. I have friends in the Territorial Army who are particularly concerned about the duties that they would have to carry out in assisting the feeding which we are discussing tonight, if such feeding ever became possible. I am told that there is great unrest among those Territorial officers because the country has not been properly informed about the nature of the emergency which we should have to face. I hope my hon. Friends will bear in mind what has been said.

9.41 p.m.

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: I think that one fundamental error of policy has been committed in introducing these Regulations. It is in deciding to have the responsibility for training these people, presumably from the school meals service, in the boroughs and not in the Greater London Authority. It is understandable why the decision has been made. Generally speaking, in Civil Defence organisations it is considered to be right and more efficient for each area to carry out Civil Defence. For most of

the functions of the Civil Defence organisations that is a right decision but in respect of training this staff, from members of the school meals service, I suggest that it would be more effective and efficient and more helpful in an emergency if they were trained at a centre of responsibility by the Greater London Authority.
What are the advantages of the choice? The principal advantage of having them trained in the boroughs and not in the centre is that obviously, if there are a large number of headquarters there is not the same danger of them all being destroyed at one time. That is true in the case of Civil Defence organisation generally but not in a case such as this where trained people in an emergency would come together at various emergency centres.
What would be the advantages if the responsibility were taken on by the Greater London Authority? They are obvious. First there is the question of recruitment. That is one of the greatest problems in Civil Defence if it is to be taken seriously. Hon. Members will understand our doubts about whether the Government are taking it seriously after the speeches we have heard from the benches opposite on the whole question. I can assure hon. Members opposite that we on this side of the House take Civil Defence seriously and appreciate the great benefits which will accure in the event of an emergency.
In almost every aspect of Civil Defence work there is great difficulty in recruiting suitable people. The obvious way to improve recruitment and to offer people the best facilities for training is to do it on a larger scale. I suggest that we should have the benefit of increased recruitment if the responsibility were accepted by the Greater London Authority.
The second thing is economy of administration. Training could be done in a centre and the responsibility shared jointly by the various boroughs. I do not feel that this would be the case if powers were given to the various boroughs. Each borough would set up its own training centre and encourage the people in its school meals service to be trained in the borough. There would be greater economy in administration and a higher standard of tuition if responsibility for this service were at one centre.
The third and most important matter is the question of the geographical deployment of people being trained. In Scotland during the war there were far too many cases where the whole of a Civil Defence organisation, or all the prominent people in the rescue services, were wiped out when a few bombs were dropped on a city centre. In two places, in particular, we saw cases where too many key personnel in Civil Defence and in the Home Guard organisation were wiped out at one time.
It is obvious that if this is to be an effective service we must make sure that the trained personnel are geographically deployed in a much greater area than that of the Greater London Authority. It may well be that people working in certain boroughs in the school meals service or other educational services reside in different boroughs. If these responsibilities are taken on by the boroughs, the people will be wrongly distributed geographically. If this service is to be useful in an emergency it is essential to have a proper geographical distribution. This kind of planning can take place only if the broad aspect is looked at and if someone in the Greater London Authority deals with the problem all the time. In these circumstances great benefits can accrue if we give this responsibility to the centre. I would emphasise that in many aspects of Civil Defence it is obvious that we could have local organisations. There would be far greater benefits if this service were undertaken by the Greater London Authority.
The final point which I would make is that it has been suggested that if a hydrogen bomb dropped on Parliament this would be a most inappropriate service to undertake emergency feeding. It is obvious that it would be. But if we have this kind of nuclear threat, it is absolutely essential that we have emergency feeding services in operation throughout the country. We do not know where the danger will arise. We do not know where the bomb will drop. It is essential that around the area of destruction we have authorities with equally effective emergency feeding services. The only effective way in which we can do it and have the best recruits, the best training and the best services is to have it undertaken by the Greater London

Authority. The Parliamentary Secretary did not make it clear why this choice has been made, why it has been decided to give the responsibility to the boroughs. If he is presenting and asking us to accept these regulations, he should provide more convincing arguments for this responsibility devolving on the boroughs and not on the Greater London Authority.

9.48 p.m.

Mr. John Mackie: I think that this is one of those debates which could be described as far-ranging, though on a very small point, in a way—that of amending a Regulation to fit into certain new things which have happened under the London Government Act. First and foremost I can reply to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor). He wonders why the boroughs are given this responsibility. The Opposition when they were in power brought in the London Government Act and they gave the boroughs this job. We are carrying out an Act which they brought into force which gives the boroughs the job of civil defence. That includes emergency feeding. We are simply carrying out what the party opposite brought into being not so very long ago. I do not know why the hon. Member should object to what they have done, although I know that he was not here at the time. Nevertheless, that is the reason for it.
The Minister of Agriculture was given this job—again by the previous Government—in an amending Order. It comes under our food responsibility and it was the previous Government which gave us that too. I would ask hon. Members opposite to take the responsibility for what their Government did and not to criticise it unless they have some better alternative. This is what they did. I will try to reply to the points which were raised. Of course, I shall not reply to those for which I have no responsibility, but I shall reply to those for which my Ministry is responsible, among them some of the points raised by the hon. Member for Cornwall. North (Mr. Scott-Hopkins).
The first is, how is the splitting-up to be done? There is to be no splitting-up. All this is being done at the present moment. These are amending Regulations about the training of emergency staff, who are all volunteers. No teachers


will be involved unless they volunteer. This is for the emergency feeding arrangements; people volunteer, and there is no conscription about it. I make this point in reply to the hon. Member for Ormskirk (Sir D. Glover). I was amused by his synthetic indignation and his talk about bringing in conscription by the back door. It makes nice stuff at this time of night.
I was asked about the premises. The premises are there now; how good or bad they are will be the responsibility of the Civil Defence people, and it is not for me to disclose that now. They will be the same premises. Under Section 49 of the London Government Act, responsibility for Civil Defence is given to the boroughs. I have dealt with that point. Co-ordination is done by Civil Defence staff, too. Nothing is added to the cost by these Regulations. They simply mean that the inner London boroughs will incur the cost at present incurred by the L.C.C. This expenditure is 100 per cent. grant aided by the Ministry. I have already dealt with the point about conscription. These people are volunteers and they are trained for emergency feeding. They are mostly school meals staff, including supervisors and cooks, and they are not teachers.

Mr. Graham Page: The Regulations do not say that they are volunteers. They say
such suitable members of the staff of the Inner London Education Authority".
This is what puzzles us.

Mr. Mackie: The hon. Member well knows that the Civil Defence people are all volunteers and that they are trained for the job.

Mr. Graham Page: The Regulations do not refer to Civil Defence staff but merely to the staff of an education authority. There is nothing here which says that they are volunteers.

Mr. Mackie: It is clear to anyone who has anything to do with Civil Defence how this operates. The staff are on the schools for school meals, they volunteer and they are trained for the job.
I have answered most of the points raised by the hon. Member for Cornwall, North. I should be going outside the scope of the alterations to the Regula-

tions if I dealt with the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldbury and Halesowen (Mr. Horner). He said that when the original Civil Defence Act, 1948, was introduced we were considering the high explosive and the atom bomb and that we are now considering the hydrogen bomb. He painted a dreadful picture, and we all know how dreadful it would be if a hydrogen bomb were dropped. He said that in those circumstances Civil Defence arrangements were totally unrealistic, when we consider what could happen following the explosion of an atom bomb or a hydrogen bomb.

Mr. Horner: I did not say that Civil Defence was unrealistic. I suggested that the original Regulations, which these Regulations amend, were drawn up in an entirely different situation and that it is the responsibility of the Ministry to draw full attention to this when they send such Regulations to local authorities.

Mr. Mackie: That may be so, but it is completely outside the subject of the training of staff for emergency feeding.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: These Regulations amend the 1951 Regulations, in which the Minister is empowered to give directions to local authorities. By the Amendment he can give directions to local authorities in the inner London area not only about the training of educational staff but also about the nature of their functions under the 1951 Regulations to provide premises—and that covers the point made by the hon. Member for Oldbury and Halesowen (Mr. Horner).

Mr. Speaker: Order. But that situation remains the same whether or not the House accepts these Regulations. For that reason that point is out of order.

Mr. Mackie: I do not wish or think that hon. Members would desire me to go over the whole matter again. Hon. Members are aware of the contents of the Regulations, ample copies of which are available. They merely allow the new London boroughs to train staff—I admit, it is Inner London Education Authority's staff—to take on the job of emergency feeding. I repeat that they are voluntary staff. That is all the Regulations do. Mr. Speaker has already drawn attention to the fact that the debate is straying rather


wide. I hope that I have said sufficient to enable the House now to accept the Regulations.

9.56 p.m.

Sir Martin Redmayne: The Joint Parliamentary Secretary should not feel aggrieved because this threatened to be what he called a rather far-ranging debate on what he described as a small point, subject of course to your Ruling, Mr. Speaker. This is a subject which we seldom have a chance to debate, although there is the most lively interest in it. Indeed, the Secretary of State for Scotland will agree that Governments have a duty to be prepared for eventualities in Parliament, even if they themselves think that the points in their Orders are small ones. I am sure that that comment strikes a chord with the Secretary of State, who was himself active in bringing this fact to the attention of the House in earlier days.
The Joint Parliamentary Secretary should not be surprised that the debate has gone wider than he expected, and he has been guilty of an inaccuracy. He used the tactic which is becoming familiar to us from the benches opposite; of trying to throw off every suggestion on the difficulties involved by saying that it was the fault of the previous Government. In this case he said that it was the previous Government who appointed his Ministry to be in charge of these Regulations. I remind him that it was the Labour Government of 1950 who appointed the Minister of Food to be in charge of these Regulations and that, in due course, the Minister of Food became the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food; so it was simply coincidental and on this occasion that excuse will not wash.
I will not go into all the details of the arguments adduced tonight, but I hope that hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on the Front Bench opposite have taken careful note of the reactions of their hon. Friends sitting behind them and, without making invidious distinctions among my hon. Friends, have also taken note of the points made by my hon. Friend the Mem-

ber for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor) and my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page). They made some extremely important comments—

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. William Ross): Those which were in order.

Sir M. Redmayne: —especially those which were in order. It does not lie with the Secretary of State to say what was and what was not in order.
As has been pointed out, this is a subject which must not be treated lightly and one on which we would like to have a more detailed debate at a more convenient time. Perhaps I might give a general warning to the Government. Since we have listened with such active interest to the boasts of the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister that the Parliamentary programme is going through with such smooth ease, they should be warned that when they bring Orders before the House they must be prepared to produce the answers which hon. Members require.

9.59 p.m.

Mr. John Mackie: I congratulate the right hon. Member for Rushcliffe (Sir M. Redmayne) on having taken over the subject of agriculture on the Front Bench opposite. I am sure that we all look forward to his lieutenants keeping us up to scratch in future. I am not aggrieved about anything at all. I never said that it was the fault of the previous Government—I simply said that two Bills promoted by that Government created these things. I accept the point that the Ministry of Food was amalgamated. We certainly do not treat Civil Defence lightly, or anything like it. I accept it all, but I cannot accept the right hon. Gentleman's last general warning.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the Civil Defence (Emergency Feeding) (Amendment) Regulations 1965, a draft of which was laid before this House on 10th February, be approved.

UNIVERSAL HEALTH STUDIOS, LIMITED

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Ifor Davies.]

10.1 p.m.

Mr. Norman Dodds: This House is indeed a House of contrasts. Less than an hour ago we were debating the Prayer Book, and now I am opening a debate on an organisation that I described on 17th December as being:
… as crooked and callous as human beings can devise."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th December, 1964; Vol. 704, c. 550.]
The case of Universal Health Studios, Ltd., can prove beyond any doubt that truth is stranger than fiction.
On Friday last, my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Board of Trade told my hon. Friend the Member for Swindon (Mr. Francis Noel-Baker) that he regretted that he had not yet had a chance to explain in detail his Department's views about Universal Health Studios, Ltd. I should have liked to have had more time this evening, but I have agreed to give my hon. Friend the last 15 minutes, whatever else happens, so that we can have his awaited statement.
On Friday last, my hon. Friend said that if an organisation is using advertising to mislead customs it does not last very long, but he will admit that there are exceptions to every rule. This organisation is an exception, because it has been in existence for some years, and on 14th February, the News of the World reported that the chairman of the firm said that they had 130,000 members; that last year was a particularly successful year, with 50,000 new members, and that January of this year was a record month in that 5,000 new members had been enrolled. My hon. Friend has to approach this now, because the firm's advertising is wrong in every single detail, and is so misleading our people that, unless we do something, and do it very quickly, we cannot talk of consumer protection.
I give another warning. The Americans have an organisation called the United States Federal Trade Commission, whose job it is to protect con-

sumers against false or deceptive advertising or commercial practices. It has run out many crooks, who cannot continue there, and our trouble is that those people are coming into this country. I now refer only to this one organisation, Universal Health Studios, Ltd., but I hope to be back in business very soon with a long list of others who are fleecing the public to which we seek to give some protection.
I am very pleased to find that a very responsible body, the Consumer Council, has come out in this matter, and I would quote the following:
The Consumer Council has copies of the contracts issued by Universal Health Studios, and also of the notes issue to Managers, as well as the 'Standard Sales Procedure' which must be used when selling the facilities of the club to prospective clients.
The notes to Managers stress that the telephone number of the head office is 'ex-directory' and is not under any circumstances to be divulged to any member of the studio.'
The contract is a very one-sided affair. The club is not responsible for any damages arising from personal injuries or damage caused whether in using the facilities or equipment.'
This document I have goes on—and this shows how one-sided the contract is:
There is no health check.
It is well worth noting that in the News of the World, the chairman, when asked:
Why didn't he have people medically examined before they were enrolled?
replied:
We see no need. If they can walk up the flights of stairs to our clubs, they can do our exercises.
One knows full well that there are people with thrombosis and heart trouble. There are people who have become injured through being in these clubs, without having had any extra expert tuition or guidance. This is a very serious matter.
The Consumer Council goes on to say this:
The facilities offered by health clubs may be appreciated by many consumers, but the high pressure sales methods used to persuade people to sign a contract binding them to an expenditure of £50 on undefined facilities are deplorable. The contract itself is a one-sided document that does not specify the facilities being offered, contracts out of all obligations for safety, and is clearly designed not to record an agreement between seller and client, but to protect the seller and to diminish the client's


rights in law. It is an example of the type of printed contract the Consumer Council most deplores.
I know that my hon. Friend has been discussing this contract with the Universal Health Studios people. I know that he has done his best. Perhaps tonight he will tell us just what has happened in this connection.
I have here over 500 letters, an absolute trail of misery of people who have been persuaded by false advertising to get into the place. Then, as my hon. Friend knows full well, they are not allowed out until they sign a document. The evidence is all here. My concern is not only about those whom we might call the consumers. I am concerned also about the staff. Staff are being inveigled into this by false advertisements and are being put into a very difficult position.
I shall now read a letter which I think is typical. Droves of the staff have come along to me after they have had arguments and have told me just what is happening. The letter reads:
Thank you for your letter of the 22nd December. Since returning to Birmingham I have discovered that the wife of a friend of mine was recently coerced into joining the Universal Health Studios because she was desperate to get out of their office to go and meet her children from school. Now she has a bill for £49 10s. …
I had two weeks' 'training' in the Oxford Street branch, then sent as an assistant with another trainee (who was to be manager) to Bournemouth. When we got there we had very little ready cash—and kept short for over a week. We had to live on my bank account. We took a flat. I paid the first two weeks and … was to pay the next two weeks. Mr. X nearly got me horribly involved in a fraud over a car and while driving it gave my name to the police when stopped by police for a motoring offence in London. It was not until Bowman-Shaw questioned me in Birmingham about two weeks later that I discovered that so-and-so was just out of prison.
In case after case people are taken into this organisation who have been in prison. There is no sort of respectability about the people who are inveigled into this place to work.
My correspondent continues:
He actually left U.H.S. employment after about two weeks and a new manager was sent from Birmingham. He arrived on a pay day with only 15s. in his pocket so … I fed and housed him …
I have related all this because I think it may help you to understand the pressures which are brought to bear on a salesman for

U.H.S. You probably know that they work from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. with only a 30 minute lunch break, that they are liable to be 'fined' for every minute they are late.
The organisation has a rule that for every minute late over the 30 minutes employees are fined 2s. a minute and they are fined 1s. for every minute they are late after 10 o'clock in the morning.
My correspondent continues:
… lunch is the only time in working hours a manager is allowed out of the building and … the 'Big Brother' act is kept up both by 'phone. … If you do not earn about £20 they won't keep you and you would be landed in a strange town with no money and the probability of a week or so before getting another job—so you make sure you do not get sacked. But you cannot get another job as you cannot get to an interview, so the only thing to do if you want to leave is to work very hard so that you can save enough money to last a week or so. You sign up, somehow, every possible person who comes into your office. In theory your pay cheque should be big but in practice some of your contracts are classed ' C 100' which means you do not get any commission on them.
What happens? Desperation makes you even more determined and even more contracts result from your sales talks, having used more and more dubious means to achieve them. The salesmen, I am certain, suffer as much as the 'members' at the hands of the Bowman-Shaws. I would be interested to know how many have been pushed into actions which have resulted in them going to prison. I myself never received my final cheque for commission.
I should have liked to have read more from these people who work in the business, but this gives us some idea of what is happening. All sorts of people write about this. I have 500 letters now and they are coming in by every post. Here is one from the Bishop of Portsmouth:
I was more than grateful to get your letter, for I have been longing for someone to have a go at the Universal Health Studios Limited and perhaps the best thing I can do is to enclose the correspondence I have had with them.
The Rev. A. C. Adcock of Oxford mentions how a young Nigerian girl was inveigled into this organisation and how she was sent all sorts of notices, threatening her with all kinds of penalties, until she broke down in health as a consequence.
One can go into this business and it does not matter how many doctors' certificates one gets from one's own doctor those who run it have no heart at all. One man paid £50. He died before he could get to the place. His widow, who


was pretty hard up, tried for months to get the money back. In the end she was grousingly paid £13 10s. out of the £50. There are people who have paid and cannot get any of their money back.
Hundreds of people have been brought to court. This organisation brings them to court in batches of 12. Here is an extract from a communication from a responsible man:
I telephoned Mr. Bray to discuss Universal Health Clubs. Mr. Bray is the solicitor instructed by that firm for their County Court work; this is largely the business of putting into the County Court those people who decline to pay under their contracts. … He has recently lad an increasing number of cases from Universal Health Clubs Ltd. The standard of evidence produced by this company is very poor. For example, the only witness turns out to be the Area Manager, who has no knowledge of the individual account. Recently the County Court judge has insisted on clear evidence of contract. In fact, last week matters got to such a point that the judge said in open court that no further cases were to be put in the list until Mr. Bray was satisfied that they could be properly presented. … Mr. Bray is uneasy about the unfavourable comment that is made against his client and says with truth that he does not wish to become associated with it. He is shortly to see Mr. Bowman-Shaw who runs Universal Health Clubs Ltd. with a view to saying that the business is a crooked one.
This communication is from a highly responsible man.
Last week there were 12 cases at the Westminster court. They were not proceeded with because nobody put in an appearance for the company. People turned up but nobody told them that the cases would not be taken. I have in my possession a copy of the contract. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Board of Trade, will say something about it tonight. The book which is issued to the staff, which I should have liked to have had time to read tonight, is the most fantastic document that anybody could present to the House. This is the American method gone mad, and the public need to be protected from it.
I am pleased to say that the Code of Advertising Practice Committee has written to me in these words:
I think you would like to know that the Voluntary Control Organisation has suspended the advertising of the Universal Health Studios Ltd. until further notice and while investigations are being made. The Code of Advertising Practice Committee has taken this action in view of the public criticism of the sales methods employed by this organisation …".

This is a voluntary organisation. I have already heard of two newspapers which have refused to accept that situation and therefore, when one recalls that my hon. Friend spoke about legislation some time ago, I think that we should be pressing on the Government to put that legislation nearer the top of their priorities in order to protect the people.
The advertisements which were appearing in the papers in January—the country is being flooded with them—are absolutely misleading. I have the impression that the company will get the maximum number of people into its studios and then, when it has got the maximum amount of money, there is the likelihood that it will do a "moonlight flit". Mr. Bowman-Shaw has said that, despite the pressure on him and the ban on advertising, he is overcoming the difficulty by spending £45,000 on 6½ million brochures to be put through the door in the next four months.
This is a most pressing matter. I hope that, on another occasion, I shall have an opportunity to read out the detailed instructions which are given to every manager and to which he must conform absolutely to the letter. For instance, it is said:
The reason that we insist that Company Procedure is followed so carefully is quite simple. We know from 12 years of experience how to sell Memberships to Universal Health Clubs. You do not know. Until a better way is devised our methods will be followed to the absolute letter. … We wish you to understand that we employ 'Shoppers' as we call them 
—that is, snoopers—
to come round and give reports on your Sales Pitch not to spy but rather to make sure that each individual Salesman and Manager is in 'tip-top' form every hour of the day, every day of the week. A 'missed' sale is always a £1 out of your pocket and more out of the Company's pocket.
Not only the people who go into the studios but the managers and staff who sign on to work in the business are like flies going into a spider's web. Not one of them is anything but miserable or sullied by this sort of thing which should be run out of the country as it has been run out of America.

10.16 p.m.

The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. George Darling): I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Dodds) for giving me


this opportunity to explain what the Board of Trade thinks about the sales methods of Universal Health Studios and to explain also why we have not been able to take the action which I know hon. Members on both sides would have wanted us to take against the practices which my hon. Friend has described. I apologise to those of my hon. Friends who would have liked to take part and support my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford, but even now, in the time available, I shall not be able to cover all the ground I should like to cover.
I shall not go over the ground which has been dealt with by my hon. Friend. He has described and rightly condemned this company's sales practices. Its so-called sales manual, which I, too, have read with care, is, in my opinion, a deplorable document. I am sure that no reputable company in this country would instruct its employees deliberately to hustle potential customers into signing agreements and documents in this way. It may be true that the company has many satisfied customers, as was said in the interview reported in the News of the World quoted by my hon. Friend. I do not know how many there are, but what I do know from the volume of complaints which have come my way is that there are hundreds of customers with genuine grievances about the way they have been hustled and in some cases, it seems, completely misled into signing documents of agreement to pay quite large sums of money, which the company, in pretty ruthless fashion, has tried to enforce.
In general terms, therefore, I agree with my hon. Friend's complaints, and I support his criticisms of the company's methods. Unfortunately, as the law stands, we have no power to do what, I am sure, all hon. Members would like us to do. There is a weakness in our protective legislation, in the measures which we can use to stop misrepresentation and objectionable trading practices. Such legislation as we have applies only to merchandise and the selling of goods. It does not cover services, although, as the House knows, we have a Bill in hand, and will introduce it as soon as possible, to remedy this and other weaknesses in our legislation.
My hon. Friend asked why we could not bring this amending legislation forward earlier. We had to decide, in so far as we are concerned with Board of Trade legislation, whether to deal first with monopolies and mergers or with our merchandise marks legislation. In deciding to deal with monopolies and mergers first, we have, I suggest, taken the right course. But I agree that the need for the other legislation is urgent, and I hope that we can bring it along as soon as possible.
The other protective legislation that we have is not really relevant to this matter. For instance, the Hire Purchase Acts do not apply to services paid for by instalments and, therefore, we cannot use the "cooling off" period provided in the Acts. The safeguards I have mentioned against misrepresentation, contained in the Merchandise Marks Acts, also apply only to goods and we have seen no evidence to suggest that the company has infringed any legislation for which the Board of Trade is responsible. Of course, if that is so—and that is the advice we have received after going into the matter very carefully in order to see if it was possible to take any action—we have no standing to intervene in the business of Universal Health Studios.
But this does not mean that we have washed our hands of the affair. The company has been in touch with the Board of Trade on several occasions, and, indeed, has asked us to specify the particular features of its trading methods to which we take exception. This has caused us some difficulty because, as I am sure the House will agree, it is not a function of the Board of Trade to go around telling companies how to conduct their business in detail. It is not our job to give companies detailed advice about their sales methods or the provisions they should put into their contracts.
But, at the same time, we have given the company advice in general terms. We have also taken the initiative in pointing out various matters which it might think about in the light of the public criticisms which my hon. Friend and others have helped to generate and in suggesting the general direction in which it might consider altering some of its practices.
At the same time, we recognise that some members of the club have no complaint to make, and we have, therefore, to be impartial on that score. But, as my hon. Friend has said, the commonest complaint against the company is that, by means of its high pressure sales procedure, customers have been hustled into singing long-term contracts without having file opportunity to consider them properly.
We have, therefore, suggested to the company that it should reconsider its instructions to its sales staff with a view to giving prospective members a chance to study the contract and think things over before committing themselves. We got some response. The company told us that it was thinking of introducing provision in its contract for a "cooling off" period, but I see from the article in Worlds Press News that it is not now proceeding with this proposal. In view of this and the reported accusation—to put it like that—of lack of co-operation by the Board of Trade, in the few minutes left to me I shall try to give the House a full account of the correspondence we have had with Mr. Bowman-Shaw.
At the end of last month, the company sent us copies of a new contract form, which included a clause enabling the member to cancel the contract by sending a notice by registered post to reach head office in London within three days of signing. Hon. Members can see what is wrong there. We suggested that it should adopt the procedure of the Hire Purchase Acts of allowing a notice of cancellation to be posted at any time before the end of the cooling-off period. We got an assurance that, within 72 hours of the member joining, a notice of cancellation could be given by recorded delivery. This was the assurance that was a basis of the reply I gave my hon. Friend on 5th February. I understand that even this has now been withdrawn. We have had no further communication with the company on that matter.
Another matter on which we had discussions is the arrangements for allowing a member to cancel his contract if he is unable, for medical reasons, to carry out the recommended course for exercises. Of course it is up to the company as the commercial proposition to decide whether it will put this provision into its

contracts. We would say that it should be in.
But the company has imposed various different conditions at various times and it is very difficult now to find out whether the contract which it is now using contains this provision. Nor do we know whether the new arrangement would apply to members who signed earlier forms before this proposition was made. At any rate, we have passed this information on to everybody we can think of—the Citizens Advice Bureaux, the Consumer Council and so on—to try to find out from people who make complaints to the Citizens Advice Bureaux whether this undertaking is being carried out. We are still in doubt about it.
Here, I suppose, I must emphasise the unreliability of the company's statements. My hon. Friend says that even this offer is not being carried out. I have just seen a letter from the company, dated 12th February, to a member who produced a doctor's certificate to say that he was suffering from epilepsy and would be harmed by the exercise. The letter from the company says that the company cannot cancel membership agreements and insists on payment under the contract.
We are at present considering whether further legislation is necessary and practicable to provide a defence, a protection, against high pressure salesmanship of this kind. As I have said, we propose to include in the new merchandise marks legislation provisions to prohibit misleading descriptions in advertisements for services as well as goods. We are also considering whether some sort of statutory cooling-off period might be appropriate for contracts covering services provided over a period and paid for by instalments. This would have the same effect as when buying goods by instalments. This is not an easy concept and there are legal difficulties in the way, but we are looking at it.
It is only fair that I should point out that there are other companies operating health clubs whose selling methods, so far as I know, are quite satisfactory. We must not think of all health clubs being criticised in this way. Certainly we have not had complaints about other health clubs.
I admit that in many respects my reply to the debate is disappointing and I am


as disappointed as any other hon. Member that we cannot take the action which I think we ought to take. The simple reason is that the law does not allow us to do what we would like to do. However, I am sure that the debate will have served a very useful purpose if it can be given wide publicity, for tonight we are warning people of the sales methods which they will encounter if they go into these Universal Health Studios. If the company does not allow these potential customers a reasonable cooling-off period in which to contract out of the agreements, we would say that customers must give careful consideration to any agreement before signing it. If we can get only that warning over, my hon. Friend will have done a very great service in allowing this statement to be made tonight.

10.29 p.m.

Mr. Victor Yates: I very much appreciate what my

hon. Friend has said. May I add to his store one case of which I will send him details? This is the case of a Birmingham woman who has been in two mental hospitals, four times in one, and who within two days of being released from hospital, unknown to her husband, made the arrangement which we have been discussing. Although within twenty-four hours her husband went to make a protest, furnishing a medical certificate, the company still insisted upon the payment of £49 17s. 6d. after this poor woman had paid half a crown. This is monstrous. Something must be done. I support my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Dodds) in the great protest he has made tonight, and I hope that the Minister will find some way to deal with this iniquitous practice.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Ten o'clock.